Logo credits to Jeroen Moes & Inge Melchior
CERiM Central and Eastern Europe hub (CEEhub)
Grounded knowledge for challenging times
The CERiM Central and Eastern Europe hub (CEEhub) brings together research, outreach and education on Central and Eastern Europe at Maastricht University.
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On this page, you can discover our key areas of expertise, find news from the CEEhub, and meet our affiliated staff members. Scroll down for all this and more!
Voor de Nederlandstalige website, klik hier.
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Discover our key areas of expertise
Democratic resilience and autocratisation
Central and Eastern Europe has experienced complex processes of democratization and some of the sharpest turns to autocracy in contemporary times, emerging as a battleground for the future of democracy in Europe. This area of expertise studies patterns of autocratization and identifies sources of democratic resilience in an era of contestation and violent conflicts.
Flows and connectivity
The relationships among Central and Eastern European countries and with the rest of the world have been shaped by their efforts to navigate changing global orders and power structures and to connect to different communities and places. This area of expertise investigates the movement of knowledge, ideas, goods, resources, capital, and people within the CEE space and to and from it, across sectors such as energy, digital and finance.
European integrations and EU enlargement
Since the end of the Second World War, Central and Eastern European states have actively participated in and shaped various forms of institutionalized European cooperation. Most recently, the European Union’s eastern enlargements have had a significant impact on European integration processes and are likely to continue doing so in the near future. How Central and Eastern European states have imagined, shaped, and influenced European integrations and how to prepare for future rounds of EU enlargement are key questions that this area of expertise explores.
Memory politics and identity
How history is interpreted has high political stakes in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond, which results in heated contests over questions of identity and belonging. This area of expertise focuses on the most contested issues in memory politics, such as the socialist past and competing national projects, and how contemporary political subjectivities are being reshaped.
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News from CEEhub
Find your latest news from CEEhub here!
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Jean Monnet Lecture Professor Milada Anna Vachudova - 28 May
Europe's Geopolitical Power in the Face of America's Authoritarian Turn
The challenges facing European states in the quest for security have come into sharp relief in 2025 as the United States has become an unreliable partner. The new US administration is attacking democratic allies and currying favor with authoritarian regimes. By withdrawing military and intelligence aid from Ukraine, it is strengthening the hand of a weakened Russia instead of helping Ukraine achieve a just peace. Can Europe dramatically ramp up its aid to Ukraine and also its own defense capabilities — even with the UK outside of the EU and authoritarian-minded regimes inside of it? Drawing on work coauthored with Nadiia Koval, I argue in this talk that defending liberal democratic values is an essential foundation of the EU's current and potential geopolitical power — and should drive the expansion of its defense capabilities as well as its soft power to fill the void left by an autocratizing United States.
28 May 2025, 16.00 – 18.00
Location: Grote Gracht GG76S 1.018
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
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Affiliated Staff
Get to know our experts!
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Giselle Bosse
Position: Professor
Area(s) of expertise: EU enlargement, democratisation and autocratisation
Regional expertise: Eastern Partnership
Research project(s): InvigoratEU, EMBRACE
Social media Personal website
Media & publications:
- The EU's Response to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Invoking Norms and Values in Times of Fundamental Rupture, JCMS (2024)
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Wicke van den Broek
Position: PhD Candidate
Area(s) of expertise: Democratic resilience and autocratisation
Regional expertise: Visegrad Group (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia), Belarus, Eastern Partnership
Research project(s): EMBRACE
Social media: LinkedIn
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Media & publications:
Jens Emmers
Position: Teaching fellow
Area(s) of expertise: Nationalism and National Minorities in Central Europe
Regional expertise: Central Europe, predominantly Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Serbia
Social media: LinkedIn
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Anna Herranz-Surrallés
Position: Associate Professor of International Relations
Area(s) of expertise: Energy and investment governance, EU external (geo)economic policies
Regional expertise: Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia
Research project(s): Jean Monnet Network VISTA Revitalising the Study of EU Single Market Integration in a Turbulent Age
Social media: LinkedIn
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Media & publications:
- The European Energy Transition in a Geopoliticising World. Geopolitics (2024)
Adriana Iamnitchi
Position: Professor, Chair of Computational Social Science
Area(s) of expertise: social media analytics, network science, computer science.
Key publications: ORCID page
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Aleksandra Komornicka
Position: Assistant Professor in European history since 1945
Area(s) of expertise: East-West European relations, European integartions, Cold War, buisness history
Regional expertise: Poland
Research project(s): The Market Next Door: Western European Multinationals and the Remaking of Central Europe, 1969-1993
Social media: LinkedIn, Bluesky
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Media & publications:
- Poland and European East-West Cooperation in the 1970s: The opening Up, Routledge (2023)
- Together with Koen van Zon, Matthew Broad, Paul Reef, Alessandra Schimmel and Jorrit Steehouder: The Unfinished History of European Integration, Amsterdam University Press (2024)
Inge Melchior
Position: Lecturer
Area(s) of expertise: national identity, collective memory, ethnography, anthropology, memory politics, monuments
Regional expertise: Estonia, Baltic States
Research project(s): Guardians of Living History - An Ethnography of Post-Soviet Memory Making in Estonia
Social media: LinkedIn
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Ferenc Lőrinc Laczó
Position: Assistant Professor
Area(s) of expertise: Political and Intellectual history, European and Global history, Democracy and Illiberalism, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Memory Studies
Regional expertise: Hungary, Central Europe
Media & publications: Key publications by Ferenc
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Brigitte Le Normand
Position: Associate Professor
Area(s) of expertise: socialist Yugoslavia, labour migration, entangled histories, and urban planning
Regional expertise: Former Yugoslavia, Western Balkans
Research project(s): Women Migrants from the Northern Mediterranean and Work in Postwar Northwestern Europe (FeMMiWork)
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Gergana Noutcheva
Position: Associate professor in International Relations, Jean Monnet Chair
Area(s) of expertise: EU enlargement and neighbourhood policies, comparative democratisation, democracy promotion
Regional expertise: Western Balkans, Eastern neighbourhood
Research project(s): EU – Eastern Europe
Social media: LinkedIn, Bluesky
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Jules Ortjens (J.R.A.)
Position: Teacher, History Department FASoS
Area(s) of expertise: Christian Democracy, EU-Russia Relations
Regional expertise: European Union, Russian Federation
Social media: LinkedIn, Bluesky
Media & publications: Key publications by Jules
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Aline Sierp
Position: Associate Professor
Area(s) of expertise: Transnational Memory, European Memory and Identity Politics, European Integration History, Post-1945 German and Italian History
Research project(s): When the Past Determines the Future: The Role of Memory in Foreign Policy Decisions
Media & publications:
- 1939 versus 1989 – A Missed Opportunity to Create a European Lieu de Memoire?, East European Politics & Societies (2017)
- Drawing Lessons from the Past – Mapping Change in Central and South-Eastern Europe. East European Politics & Societies (2016)
- Europe’s Changing Lessons from the Past [Special Issue]. East European Politics & Societies (2016)
- Nostalgia for Times Past. On the Uses and Abuses of the Ostalgie Phenomenon in Eastern Germany. Contemporary European Studies (2009)
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Aneta Spendzharova
Position: Associate Professor
Area(s) of expertise: European Political Economy, Green transition, Financial sector governance
Regional expertise: Bulgaria, Southeastern Europe, Baltics
Research project(s): 'Raise your game or fall behind: explaining the use of EU sustainable finance in the EU’s Central and Eastern European member states', with Ringa Raudla, Kaija Veskioja at the Tallinn University of Technology
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
Mariëlle Wijermars
Position: Assistant professor in Internet Governance
Area(s) of expertise: Digital authoritarianism; Internet policy; Platform governance; Russian politics; Political communication; Internet censorship
Regional expertise: Russia
Research project(s): Research for information freedom
Social media LinkedIn, Bluesky, personal website
Media & publications:
- Is Telegram a “harbinger of freedom”? The performance, practices, and perception of platforms as political actors in authoritarian states. Post-Soviet Affairs (2022)
Contact information: Maastricht University profile page
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Videos
Meet Dr Brigitte le Normand, CERiM CEEhub expert on socialist Yugoslavia
Meet Dr Gergana Noutcheva, CERiM CEEhub expert on comparative democratisation of Eastern Europe
Meet Dr Inge Melchior, CERiM CEEhub expert on Estonian memory politics
Meet Dr Aneta Spendzharova, CERiM CEEhub expert on financing the EU green transition
Meet Dr Ferenc Laczó, CERiM CEEhub expert on the political history of Hungary
Meet Wicke van den Broek, CERiM CEEhub PhD candidate in EU democracy promotion
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Past CEEhub events
CEEhub launch event 15 May 2025
14:30 Opening remarks
Prof Giselle Bosse, Maastricht University
14:40 Keynote lecture: What is antiliberal politics, and what can academics do about it?
Professor Andrea Peto, Central European University
15:40 Panel discussion: Key themes, challenges and opportunities in studying Central and Eastern Europe today
Dr Tetyana Lokot, Associate professor in Digital Media and Society, Dublin City University
Dr Gergana Noutcheva, Associate professor in International Relations and European Foreign Policy, Maastricht University
Prof Adriana Iamnitchi, Professor and Chair of Computational Social Sciences, Maastricht University
Moderator: Dr Mariëlle Wijermars, Assistant professor in Internet Governance, Maastricht University
16:45-17:30 Reception
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