In my capacity as director of the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance, I welcome you to the first ACELG newsletter intended to keep you up-to-date with the varied activities and achievements of our research centre of excellence at the University of Amsterdam. Our aim is to function as a nationally and internationally acclaimed research centre on the European Union, on its law and on its governance practices. By means of this Newsletter, we want to communicate with a broader community of researchers and practitioners interested in European Union Law.

Building on the expertise already existing within our home base, the Department of International and European Law at the University of Amsterdam, the Centre has expanded remarkably quickly in a very short space of time to now include approximately 25 researchers, funded from various sources. We aim to continue to provide an environment where we strive for the goals of research excellence, international and national profiling, external research funding and the retention of our talented researchers. Our profile and research agenda is, we believe, both distinctive and cutting edge and our publications record with top international publishers and in national and international peer-reviewed journals speaks for itself.

We hope that our newsletters (distributed not more than twice a year to avoid overload) attracts your interest. After all clear ‘added value’ cannot be achieved by researchers acting as individuals and your feedback and questions are therefore very welcome. Our web site is kept up-to-date and we invite you to visit us there.