In this institute, you will join experts from around the world to examine local and regional changes affecting the management of the politics and policies of cross border regions and transboundary people. This institute explores the challenges and opportunities in managing cross-border regions using case-studies such as the Pacific Coast Cascadian cross-border region. Professionals from the Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière, the Association of European Border Regions, the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, and the University of Western Washington Border Policy Research Institute, as well as leading legal and policy experts will lead workshopped discussions, presentations, and practicum sessions.
Upon successful completion of this institute, you will be able to:
Dr. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly is the Project Director at Borders in Globalization and a Co-Principle Investigator with Dr. Jeff Corntassel on the 7-year SSHRC partnership grant entitled “21st Century Borders” and is the lead of Pillar 2 for that grant focusing on Territory & Connectivity. He joined the University of Victoria School of Public Administration in 2001 and is a Professor of Public Policy at the University of Victoria. He was the Jean Monnet Chair in European Urban and Border Region Policy (2014–16), then the Jean Monnet Chair in Innovative Governance (2017–20), and he is currently the Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Policy and Governance (2021–24).
Ben Rohrbaugh is a Policy Editor with BIG_Lab and a Senior Fellow in the Central America and Mexico Policy Initiative at the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law. He is the co-founder of Lantern Unmanned Autonomous Systems, LLC, which develops systems to scan cargo containers using aerial drones, and a partner at the consulting and training firm New Macro Risks. He was previously a Senior Advisor in the Department of Homeland Security Office of Policy. From 2014 to 2016, he served as the Director for Enforcement and Border Security at the National Security Council in the White House, where he coordinated policy on Central American migration, border management with Mexico and Canada, supply chain security, and cross-border infrastructure.
Previously he worked as a Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, where he handled engagement on customs, migration, and security cooperation with the Government of Mexico and negotiated the first entirely privately financed border crossing. Prior to this, Ben was Counselor to the Special Representative for Border Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, where he focused on border management, cross-border infrastructure, and communications interoperability. He also served as the Director for National Security within the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, where he was responsible for political appointments within the Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Defense, and international development organizations.
Jean Peyrony is the Director General of the Paris-based Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière (MOT), which is a think-tank established by the French Government to support cross-border cooperation around France. Jean has been coordinating the work of the MOT since 2011. Before his current position, he was already employed by the MOT between 2006 and 2008 as the director of development. Subsequently, he worked at the European Commission’s Department of Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) as a desk officer of European urban policy between 2008 and 2011. From 1992 to 1999, he managed the work of the regional observation group at Île-de-France directorate general and shortly in Réunion. He was responsible for the territorial cooperation and cohesion policy related activities of the DATAR, the interministerial delegation of spatial planning and regional attractiveness of France, between 1999 and 2005.
Claude Beaupre is currently a joint Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Victoria, Canada, and Contemporary History at the University of Strasbourg, France. She is a BIG Graduate Student Fellow (PhD) and a Research Assistant and Conference Coordinator with the Jean Monnet Network on Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the (De-) Legitimation of European Integration. Her current doctoral research is on the influence of media in contemporary Canadian migration discourse. She has previously received Masters from York University in Public and International Affairs and from Sciences Po Strasbourg in History of International Relations. She focused her Master Thesis on the Canadian Media coverage of the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe, 2015-2016. She also holds an honours Bachelor in International Studies from Glendon College, York University.
Martin Pratt is an internationally-respected expert in boundary-making, border management and territorial dispute resolution. Prior to establishing Bordermap Consulting, which works to support international boundary-making and territorial dispute resolution around the world, Martin served as Director of Research at Durham University’s renowned International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU). Martin specialises in geographical and technical aspects of boundary-making, but his expertise combines geography, international law, history, geopolitics and cartography. He has worked with more than forty governments and international organisations involved in boundary negotiations and third-party dispute resolution before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and international arbitral tribunals. He has also advised numerous oil and gas companies, pipeline layers, shipping companies, law firms and publishers.
Birte Wassenberg is Professor in Contemporary History at the Strasbourg Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Strasbourg) at the University of Strasbourg and member of the Research Unit Centre D’Etudes Internationales et Européennes (CEIE). She holds a Jean Monnet Chair, is director of the Jean Monnet network Borders in Motion (FRONTEM), deputy director of the Franco-German Jean-Monnet Center of Excellence and director of the Master in Border Studies, International Relations. From 1993 to 2006 she was responsible for cross-border cooperation at the Région Alsace. Her research fields are border regions and Euro-scepticism and the history of European organizations, especially the Council of Europe. She is also a former student from the College of Europe, promotion Charles IV, (1992-1993).
Since 2006, Martín Guillermo Ramirez is Secretary General of the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR), with offices in Gronau and Berlin (Germany), an antenna in Brussels and Info Centres in Kharkiv (Ukraine), Novi Sad (Vojvodina, Serbia) and Kaliningrad (Russia). The AEBR is the oldest regional Association in Europe (founded in 1971) and represents the interests of European border regions towards the EU institutions, the Members States and the Council of Europe.
Ricardo Ferreira holds a PhD in Applied Economics (Spain), a Master in International Business (Norway), and a degree in Economics (Portugal). Currently, Ricardo is the coordinator of the Border Focal Point (BFP) in the European Commission’s Department for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) in the unit for Cross-Border Cooperation. In the European Commission, he has also worked on ERDF management in DG REGIO; Skills and Qualifications in DG EMPL and on Opening Up Education (inclusion of more ICT and OER in Education and Training systems) and University-Business Cooperation in DG EAC. Before joining the European Commission Ricardo has been a professor of economics at the Portalegre Polytechnic Institute (PT) for about 15 years. During that period his main research area was on cross-border interactions, mostly focusing on interregional trade on the Portuguese–Spanish Border.
Dr. Laurie Trautman is the Director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University, where she engages in a range of research activities focused on the U.S. – Canada border, and the ’Cascadia’ region between Washington State and British Columbia. In addition to working with faculty and students, she collaborates with the private sector and government agencies to inform policy solutions and advance cross-border collaboration. Laurie actively serves on a number of working groups that are engaged in the U.S. – Canada relationship, and co-chairs committees for the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and the Future Borders Coalition. Dr. Trautman is also on the steering committee for the Cascadia Innovation Corridor. She is a Global Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Canada Institute and a Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Oregon.
Matt Morrison serves as CEO of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) which was established in 1991 by statute in the states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon, and the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon and Northwest Territory. Mr. Morrison also manages PNWER’s Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (CRDR). Along with his role at PNWER, Mr. Morrison is Co-Chair of the Future Borders Coalition, a group of public and private organizations bringing solutions to border issues in all modes at the Canada – U.S. border. The FBC is currently working on COVID resilience and solutions to safely easing border restrictions based on science and health standards.
Frédérique Berrod has been a professor at the Strasbourg Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Strasbourg) at the University of Strasbourg since September 2008. She was a lecturer at the Institute of Advanced European Studies in Strasbourg (2006–2008) and at the Faculty of Economic, Social and Legal Sciences of the University of Haute-Alsace (2002–2006). She specializes in teaching European Union law, including EU institutional law, internal market law, competition law, border law, energy law, health product law, digital internal market, and data law in Europe.
Bernard Reitel is a Professor of Political and Urban Geography at Artois University in France. He is a member of the French-Belgian consortium ‘Institut des Frontières et des Discontinuités’ and held a Jean Monnet Chair (2017–2020). His work lies at the intersection of urban geography and political geography, more precisely in the field of studies on urban development, governance and border studies. He is currently researching urban planning, territorial governance in border cities and cross-border agglomeration, and the resemantisation of urban public space by local public bodies in Western Europe.
Nathalie Verschelde joined the transnational cooperation and macro-regional strategies unit in the European Commission’s Department for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) as Deputy Head of Unit on 1 January 2023, after seven years in the cross-border cooperation unit, and a previous spell in the INTERREG unit from 2006 to 2011. She is very keen to engage about the added-value of territorial cooperation in all its shape for European citizens and our European integration project. Nathalie is passionate about border life, and how diversity makes us all better and stronger wherever we are located in the EU and its neighbourhood.
Joanna Kurowska-Pysz is a doctor of economic sciences with a habilitation. Her key research topics include public governance, territorial cooperation, cross-border cooperation, and minority issues. She is an associate professor at the WSB University in DabrowaGornicza (Poland) and works as the director of the Research Institute on Territorial and Inter-Organizational Cooperation. She has authorised or co-authored over 180 papers, chapters and monographs. She has participated in many international research projects funded mainly by INTERREG, Erasmus Plus, Horizon 2020, and Horizon Europe. Combining her academic activities with a professional career in consulting, Joanna is a leading expert in the Polish consulting agency KREATUS Ltd., Bielsko-Biała, an AMI Expert at The European Commission, DG REGIO, Brussels, and an external expert in evaluating INTERREG programmes for many Managing Authorities. She is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the University of the Greater Region, Luxembourg (UniGR-CBS) and the Steering Committee of the Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network (TEIN).
This institute is required to complete the following streams: