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Presentation
of the ENCS
|
| > Objectives | Top |
The purposes of the European Network for Canadian Studies (ENCS) are to develop the European dimension of Canadian Studies, to foster linkages between European Canadianists, to facilitate the cooperation between European and Canadian scholars and to contribute to the development of a new generation of European Canadianists.
To reach these goals the ENCS organizes:
-
regular meetings of presidents or representatives of European Canadian Studies associations
-
joint events (conferences, seminars, lecture tours) between European Canadian Studies associations
-
high quality pan-European Canadian Studies conferences every five years
-
workgroups on new themes for Canadian Studies
Furthermore the ENCS helps expand Canadian Studies into new European areas and into new, non- traditional fields. The ENCS also tries to reinforce and widen fields such as human resource development, public administration, law, integration and identity, new technologies, development aid, economics, etc.
| > Organization | Top |
The ENCS brings together the Presidents or representatives of all European Canadian Studies Associations but its structure is open and flexible.
Its
agenda is based upon a consensus model, its personnel composition fluctuates
according to the task at hand and its operations are carried
out in close cooperation with the association that want to participate
in a specific operation.
The chairman acts as a technical chair, convenes meetings, follows
up decisions and makes grant requests for activities and projects.
The ENCS maintains close links with the International Council for Canadian Studies.
ENCS, in short, is not another administrative layer between European Canadian Studies associations and the International Council for Canadian Studies but rather an informal facilitator.
| > History | Top |
A European Task Force on Canadian Studies (ETF) was established at the end of the first-ever all-European Canadian Studies conference, which was held in The Hague, Netherlands, in October 1990. Its purpose was to further develop the European dimension of Canadian Studies. The initiative was accepted by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa and got a mandate for five years.
To start up activities, a meeting of Presidents or representatives of European Canadian Studies associations was held and plans how to give form to cooperation were discussed.
Out of this meeting developed the idea of:
- instituting a European Student Seminar on Graduate Work in Canadian Studies,
- developing networks of cooperation (in 1995 ETF organized a conference in Bratislava, Slovakia, where a Central European Canadian Studies network was established)
- organizing Europe-wide conferences (at the end of its first mandate ETF organized a comparative Canadian-European conference on migration and refugee issues).
Towards the end of the first mandate period a second mandate was negotiated with Ottawa. The name "European Task Force on Canadian Studies" was changed to European Network for Canadian Studies (ENCS).
Under the second mandate ENCS :
- fosters linkages between European Canadianists
- organizes European Student Seminars on Graduate Work in Canadian Studies annually
- organizes high quality pan-European Canadian Studies conferences every five years
- serves as an intermediary in the administration of FEP/FRP programs for countries identified by Foreign Affairs
- helps expand Canadian Studies in Europe into new, non- traditional fields, or reinforce and widen fields such as human resource development, public administration, law, integration and identity, new technologies, development aid, economics, etc.
- Organized the annual European Student Seminars on Graduate Work in Canadian Studies
- Assisted Central European Canadianists in setting up their own Canadian Studies associations
- Organized three pan-European Canadian Studies conferences:
- Organizing Diversity. Migration Policy and Practice - Canada and Europe (Berg en Dal, Netherlands, 1995).
- Recasting European and Canadian History: National Consciousness, Migration, Multicultural Lives” (Bremen, Germany, 2000)
- Ties that Bind: Accommodating Complex Diversity in Canada and the European Union (Brussels, Belgium, 2005).