Two of our faculty members are taking their expertise all the way to Poland. Drs. Laurel Wei and Bibek Chand will be joining the international conference: The Wroclaw Security Summit 2021, 2nd International Science Conference-NATO and the EU-strategic partnership and cooperation in the field of the Euro-Atlantic security area. The conference is sponsored by the University of Wroclaw’s Institute of International Studies, Wroclaw, Poland.

The collaborative conference is scheduled to begin on October 29, 2021 and run through early February 2022. The workshop will take the format of graduate-level classes, and professors will meet with their students at the University of Wroclaw in online sessions. According to Dr. Laurel Wei, the workshop “will focus on the impact of economic interdependence upon states against the background of the US-China rivalry as well as states’ coping strategies.” In addition, Dr. Wei says that the conference will cover “various topics such as international trade, trade and security, and trade-related environmental issues and human rights.

Dr. Bibek Chand will be participating with a workshop entitled “Rise of China and the Implications for the EU in Asia”. According to Dr. Chand, the content of the workshop he is scheduled to conduct is “largely focuses on how China’s increasing power and engagements within Asia are challenging the EU’s normative approaches in engaging the region’s countries, including democracy promotion and strengthening of rule of law. The workshop largely discusses these challenges faced by the EU and encourages articulation of the ways in which the EU can change its tactics in Asia.”

Both Dr. Wei and Dr. Chand are excited at the prospect of collaborating with Wroclaw University. “I am a firm believer in engaging with students and researchers from all over to incorporate a wide array of perspectives. This opportunity fell right within that frame, and I thought it would be a fun experience and would provide a wonderful opportunity to engage with students from a university in another part of the world, but on a topic I have a keen interest in,” said Dr. Chand.

“This workshop allows me to exchange ideas with students from a different culture and regional background. By collaborating with them, we can learn from each other and engage in intellectual conversations about ongoing issues in this ever-changing world. This is essentially a valuable opportunity to build on knowledge and grow in insights,” said Dr. Wei.