Blue Europe - 2024-2025 “Denis de Rougemont” Contest

Blue Europe, a think tank focused on fostering connections between Western, Central and Eastern Europe, is pleased to announce the 2024-2025 “Denis de Rougemont” contest. This year’s competition honours Denis de Rougemont (1906-1985), a Swiss writer, cultural theorist, and thinker who was a pivotal advocate for European unity and integration, promoting a vision of Europe grounded in cultural diversity, shared values, and federal cooperation. His work Le Paysan du Danube, through the fictional journey of a peasant from the Danube region who travels across Europe, explores the continent’s rich diversity of languages, traditions, and identities while highlighting the common values that bind Europeans together. Le Paysan du Danube serves as an important reminder that true European unity can only be achieved by valuing both shared heritage and cultural diversity, promoting dialogue and cooperation between the West and East.

Conditions

As mentioned before, this contest is open to all EU/EEA Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral students, as well as recent graduates who obtained their degree in 2024. Proof of academic enrolment is required. While not compulsory, scholars from Western Europe are still invited to write about European relations focusing on CEE, while scholars from Central and Eastern Europe are encouraged to engage specific topics related to CEE.

Individuals may submit more than one paper to the competition, but only one will be eligible to be promoted to the final round. Submissions must be original, unpublished works that have not been submitted to other competitions or journals. Authors must ensure their submissions do not infringe on the intellectual property rights of any third party.

Contributions must have a minimum of 3,000 words and a maximum of 30,000 words. To be admitted to the contest and be eligible for the award, the submission must be presented in either English, French or Polish. Nevertheless, to have the paper published on the website, an English version is required. All contributions must also adhere to a formal academic style, with proper citations and references according to the Chicago Manual of Style (both Author-Date and Note-Bibliography stiles are accepted).

Original articles may be submitted on any subject among the following areas: Economy and Trade, Industry and Business, Literature and Cultural Studies, Political Science and Governance, International Relations, Sociology, Law and Human Rights, Environmental Studies and Climate Policy, Innovation and Technology, Energy and Sustainability, Education and Research Collaboration, Migration and Demographic Studies, Public Policy and Administration, Regional Development and Urban Planning, Security Studies and Geopolitics. Nevertheless, contributions must deal with – at least partially – Central and Eastern Europe.

Award

Authors of papers that are successfully accepted into the competition will receive a certificate of participation, which will include the evaluation of their work. As mentioned above, selected papers will also be published on the Blue Europe website and will be eligible for a cash prize. This year, we are offering two cash prizes to the authors of the two best articles that receive the highest marks from the jury. We will award:

• A prize of 1000€ for the article with the highest score from the jury;
• A prize of 500€ for the article with the second highest score from the judges.

Articles will be evaluated by a panel of experts based on originality, clarity, depth of analysis, and relevance to the theme of the contest and the mission of Blue Europe.