All in a day's work

I’ve received numerous requests for a detailed description of how I spend my days here in Brussels. Well, I’d love to tell you that they are filled with high level meetings with EU officials where I slam my fist on mahogany tables yelling, “This is absolute rubbish and I won’t stand for it!” and then storm out or that I am constantly jetting off to glamourous locales while sipping Champagne from in diamond encrusted flutes. Sadly, this is not my job (in fact, I don’t think it’s anyone’s job).

I work at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a think tank based here in Brussels. Think tanks are a bit different in Europe than in North America. Here, they are a bit more independent than those at home. In Canada, we have the Fraser Institute and CD Howe Institute, each of which has its own ideology (left or right, conservative or liberal) and recommends policies based on these principles. Here it’s a bit different. The only thing CEPS “supports” is the European Union. Its motto is “Thinking ahead for Europe” and that’s exactly what it does. It conducts research to understand where the EU is and evaluates the progress of certain policies (ie. The Lisbon Strategy) as well as conducting research to see what the best way of achieving certain EU goals are. Many of the researchers are economists or political scientists and CEPS deals with different fields such as social policy, financial integration, economic policy, international relations, justice and home affairs or climate change and energy. As they are researchers—most of them have PhDs and many of them are linked with universities in some way—it adds a further degree of legitimacy to their results and the CEPS reputation in general.

Now the money. CEPS receives the majority of its funding from two areas. The first is through donations. These can come from the public and private sector. Regular Joes like you and me or huge corporations like Microsoft or Starbucks; Enron or Google. Indeed, CEPS’ policy is that to be independent/fair we accept all in order to offset the influence of one (Disclaimer: As far as I know, there has never been any interference from a member in the outcome of CEPS findings). The second way CEPS receives money is from the European Commission (this sounded crazy to me too in the beginning, but it actually works). As Europe is a huge geographically and has a population larger than the United States, the Commission cannot conduct accurate research for the entire continent on its own. That’s where the think tanks come in. If the Commission wants to study the influence of higher education on job prospects, for example, they will issue a tender, or a call for proposals. Think tanks and universities will propose projects and bid on the tender. Whoever wins gets the project and must complete it on a certain timetable and with certain deliverables. CEPS—from what I’m told both from people within and without—has a stellar reputation in this area.

That’s a bit on what CEPS does, now what do I do? Well, I have two jobs. Firstly, I work in communications. This is the job I was given by the Tour when my internship at the Central Bank fizzled out. But CEPS already has a full time communications manager. His name is Marco Incerti, he's Italian and he’s my boss. As a result, I haven’t had much to do on this front. Mostly media monitoring for mentions of CEPS in the press—we try to get our researchers to be quoted in mainstream media as often as possible—as well as report writing for the newsletter and website.

I also do research for a German economist named Felix Roth. I got matched with Felix pretty accidentally on the first day. I told Marco I’d like to get some research experience, but he said they didn’t have much (there’s another Tour intern there researching climate change). But when we were introduced to the researchers, Felix said he’d take me on. And so far it’s been great. I’m lucky that his research really interests me. He specializes in the Social Welfare Model, or the welfare state in Europe, and so a lot of our discussions center on welfare economics and whether they’re sustainable economically or culturally. But he has a background in sociology so he’s not quite a heartless economist. Although sometimes when I say something really lefty he pauses and stares at me and I get the feeling he wants to pat me on the head and say, “Aw, you poor , misguided little socialist. You will learn.” Thankfully, he’s resisted so far. In terms of research, I collect data, make data sets, read reports and edit his reports (as a native English speaker, I’m like gold there). In return he takes the time to teach me. He explains the data and its significance and will go through it with me if I’m confused. Last week he took me to a conference on demographic challenges in Europe and come August I’ll get to attend a conference he’s organizing and maybe even co-author/edit a paper he’s writing.

So as I have two jobs, this usually keeps me occupied during the day. I also get to attend any of the conferences CEPS puts on regularly. So often I get to sit in conferences/lunchtime meetings with brilliant people and hear them talk about really interesting things. Today I sat in on a meeting about the EU budget and another on improving decision making in the EU. Now, for those of you not as geeky as I am, this whole experience may sound like one giant snooze fest. But for a self-professed information junkie, all this knowledge so easily accessible is pretty awesome.