The Overseas University Programme (OUP) is the umbrella term for CIFE‘s academic programmes with partner universities in China and the United States. These programmes have historically evolved from fruitful academic personal contacts of CIFE researchers into long-lasting institutional cooperation formats.
The partner institution in the United States is Texas A&M University. CIFE’s cooperation with Texas A&M began in 2011, having been established on personal grounds long before. The cooperation consists of the yearly Summer School Summer European Academy (SEA) and two former programmes, the Danube Summer Institute (DSI) and the European Semester. They offer undergraduate students of political science and related disciplines at Texas A&M the opportunity to spend several weeks in Europe and learn about the European integration process through lectures with experienced academic staff, through institutional visits and guided city tours.
CIFE‘s cooperation with Chinese universities includes the Yunnan University in Kunming and the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. The cooperations date back to 2013 and currently comprises the EU-China Summer School in Germany (in cooperation with Trier University). Former programmes are the EU-China Summer School in Greece (in cooperation with the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy), the EU-China Winter School in Germany (in cooperation with Trier University) as well as several virtual summer and winter schools that have taken place online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thes EU-China programmes aim at bringing Chinese students to Europe in order to make them acquainted with the fundamentals, principles and topics governing the European Union in a global environment. As China is becoming an increasingly important global player, the programmes established by CIFE foster the strengthening of relations between the two actors in the field of higher education.