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The Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence (JMECE) at the University of Leeds was inaugurated on 9 March 1999.  The Centre is one of a small number throughout the world intended to stimulate and support research on the EU the teaching and learning of 'European integration' in universities and other higher education establishments.

The Centres of Excellence initiative is one of four which comprise the European Commission's Jean Monnet Project 'European Integration in University Studies'.

The Jean Monnet Project targets disciplines in which European Union developments are an increasingly important part of the subject studied, such as Community law, European economic integration, European political integration, and the history of the European construction process.

According to the website of the Jean Monnet Project, between 1990 and 2004 it "has funded some 2500 projects in the field of European integration studies, including 100 Jean Monnet European Centres of Excellence, 650 Jean Monnet Chairs and 1700 Permanent Courses and European Modules."

Contacts:
Prof Juliet Lodge
Director
JMECE
Institute of Communication Studies
University of Leeds
LS2 9JT
UK
Tel: +44 (0)113 343 4443

Dr Katharine Sarikakis
Institute of Communications Studies
Houldsworth Building
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT
UK
Tel: + 44 (0)113 343 7603

The Jean Monnet Project supports teaching through four initiatives: 

Jean Monnet Chairs and Jean Monnet Chairs ad personam - full-time teaching posts entirely devoted to the teaching of European integration.

European Modules - a short programme of studies concentrating entirely on European integration, in one of the four priority disciplines of the Jean Monnet Project

Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence - a label including scientific and human resources dealing with European integration studies and research within the university and/or at a regional level.

Jean Monnet Chairs at the University of Leeds:

Professor Jeremy Clegg - Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration and International Business Management. Research projects and recent publications include the effects of European Integration on Foreign and Direct Investment (FDI); European Telecommunications liberalisation; Foreign Bank entry to Central and Eastern Europe; knowledge transfer via FDI to Central and Eastern Europe and China.

Professor Juliet Lodge - Professor of European Politics and Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration. She was European Woman of the Year in 1992 and has published extensively on the EU, including works on the European Parliament, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Co-operation in Justice and Home Affairs.

Founding Chair: Professor Jo Shaw (Law; now at Manchester University) 

Founding Chair: Professor Chris Lord (Politics; now at University of Reading)

Visiting Professor: Geoffrey Martin, OBE (formerly Head of the European Commission's  Representation in the UK, and now at the Commonwealth Secretariat)

Research Associate: Dr Richard Corbett, MEP (Lab) is co-author of The European Parliament (with F. Jacobs and M.Shackleton) and author of numerous works on the Parliament, constitutional reform and EU institutions.

JMECE Associates at the University of Leeds - a list is available in M/S Word format

The Centre's Annual Report for 2002-2003 isalso available in format

About Jean Monnet
Described as ‘The Father of Europe’, Jean Monnet is credited with first suggesting that French and German coal and steel production should be pooled. His idea was to tie the two economies together in order to prevent a repeat of the two wars which had ravaged Europe in the first half of the 20th century. The suggestion was made to French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, and led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951.According to Monnet: “The pooling of coal and steel is but a beginning …The union of the peoples of Europe is the end.” He was appointed President of the ECSC’s High Authority – which later became the European Commission. 

Monnet was born in Cognac, France, in 1888.  During the First World War he was based in London, developing economic co-operation amongst the Allies; from 1920 to 1923 he was deputy Secretary-General of the League of Nations (now the United Nations); he then worked in international finance and in his family's cognac business.


European Commission Audiovisual Library

It was Monnet who, in June 1940, persuaded Winston Churchill to draft a declaration proclaiming an 'indissoluble union' between France and the United Kingdom.

Following the Second World War, Monnet became responsible for the economic recovery of France, as head of the Commissariat du Plan. Having helped establish the ECSC, Monnet resigned from the High Authority in 1954. The following year he founded the Action Committee for a United States of Europe, which existed until 1975. His plan for a European Defence Community, however, did not come to fruition.  

In 1976, just three years before his death, Jean Monnet was made an Honorary Citizen of Europe.