Indeed, ACELG seeks actively to develop new projects in an on-going fashion, drawing from the interactions of the various research interests and from the need to take a more integral approach to processes and practices of European integration.

Researchers are further strongly encouraged to apply for external funding and every year several researchers do so, in the national or EU context. They benefit from administrative and academic support within the Faculty and University, in particular from Amsterdam Research Institute for Legal Studies (ARILS) and Innovation Exchange Amsterdam (IXA). They also contribute actively in sharing their expertise and experiences within the Faculty more generally. Beyond this, ACELG itself also offers a strong research environment for academic exchange and support funding applications.

The research programme covers the period from 2014 to 2018. At that point ACELG will assess the progress it has made and the outcomes it has produced, and consider consolidation and possible new directions. The research group grew rapidly in the initial years and is now relatively stable with a solid embedment within the permanent positions funded by the Faculty and including core teaching tasks. The pool of doctoral candidates is quite large and continues a modest but deliberate growth pattern, funded by a variety of sources both internal to the University and outside of it. This is also perceived to be stable and well grounded in terms of research culture within ACELG and more widely within the Faculty.

At the same time ACELG continues to attract scholars from the outside who either bring their own research funding (for example, personal NWO research grants, such as Rubicon or Veni) or are successful, after an initial funding seed period, in acquiring their own personal multi-annual research grants and permanent position within the Faculty. Indeed, externally funded researchers make a significant contribution to ACELG’s research output and ACELG aims not only to initially attract them but to offer them a viable career path within the research group, not only by providing them with competitive framework conditions to make bids for new funding opportunities but also by integrating them into the faculty. Several researchers that have been successful in attracting funding in the past will be applying for follow-up funding under this research programme.