Most policy fields in global governance have an abundance of country performance indicators (CPIs) and new CPIs proliferate apace. States are now measured and ranked on a dizzying array of cross-cutting metrics. Prima facie, the era of indicators promises a revolution: armed with ever improving data, policymakers can better allocate scarce resources to address global challenges. Yet, the era of indicators generates a problem and a paradox: while each individual CPI strives to simplify complexity, an abundance of CPIs on the same issue multiplies complexity and thus generates ambiguity. Moreover, while it would be reassuring if we could assume only the soundest CPIs would thrive, many high-profile CPIs remain in widespread use despite well-known shortcomings.Crucially, the paradox begets a major puzzle that prior research has yet to consider: How do private and public bodies navigate policy fields populated with multiple indicators, each portending to measure the same phenomenon? Although prior research provides firm grounds to hope that CPI users and producers improve their practices over time, no studies have investigated whether they do. Rendering this gap tractable, Navigator investigates the “marketplace of indicators” in four major policy fields: education, global governance, climate policy, and pandemic preparedness. Navigator’s novel framework—inspired by the classic liberal theory of the marketplace of ideas—enables the systemic, longitudinal analysis of how users’ and producers adapt their practices over time: Whether users learn in light of criticism of their favoured CPIs, how they discern when faced with a diversity of CPIs; and how producers compete for users within crowded policy fields. In this way, Navigator would push the frontier of CPI research by conducting a systematic problem shift: from investigating a single CPI’s influence or limitations, to examining how users and producers adapt in the face of growing CPI competition and CPI critique.

The EUNPACK project unpacks EU crisis response mechanisms, with the aim to increase their conflict sensitivity and efficiency. By combining bottom–up perspectives with an institutional approach, EUNPACK will increase our understanding of how EU crisis responses function and are received on the ground in crisis areas. This entails exploring local agencies and perceptions in target countries without losing sight of the EU’s institutions and their expectations and ambitions. It also entails examining the whole cycle of crisis, from pre-crisis, through crisis, and into post-crisis phase. EUNPACK analyses two gaps in EU crisis response. First, the intentions–implementation gap, which relates to 1) the capacity to make decisions and respond with one voice and to deploy the necessary resources, 2) how these responses are implemented on the ground by various EU institutions and member states, and 3) how other actors – local and international – enhance or undermine the EU’s activities. Second, the project addresses the gap between the implementation of EU policies and approaches, and how these policies and approaches are received and perceived in target countries, what we refer to as the implementation¬–local reception/perceptions gap. Our main hypothesis is that the severity of the two gaps is a decisive factor for the EU’s impacts on crisis management and thereby its ability to contribute more effectively to problem-solving on the ground. We analyse these gaps through cases that reflect the variation of EU crisis responses in three concentric areas surrounding the EU: the enlargement area (Kosovo, Serbia), the neighbourhood area (Ukraine, Libya), and the extended neighbourhood (Mali, Iraq, Afghanistan). The results of our research will enable us to present policy recommendations fine-tuned to making the EU’s crisis response mechanisms more conflict and context sensitive, and thereby more efficient and sustainable.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU has responded by re-engaging with its neighbours. This builds on the assumption that bringing them into the European family of liberal democracies will increase the resilience of the whole European community against external negative interference. Combining insights from a variety of academic fields, RE-ENGAGE will deliver innovative research and concrete advice on how the EU should adapt its foreign policy tools to the current context. Russia’s war against Ukraine has radically altered European security, not only causing extreme civilian suffering in Ukraine, but posing a direct threat to neighbouring countries fearful of the war spreading. Confronted by the direst security crisis in decades, EU policymakers are forced to fundamentally rethink their security policies. Europe has demonstrated unexpected unity and resolve, adopting a series of sanctions against Russia, and increasing national defence spending to better handle potential military threats. This has also led to a revival of EU enlargement process. While this will not improve EU resilience to military threats in the narrow sense, it may counter hybrid warfare, which is the more likely threat faced by the EU and most of its neighbours. The neighbourhood policy and the accession process require urgent adjustment to build strong, resilient neighbourhood states capable of countering external threats, particularly those posed by hybrid warfare. A systematic investigation of how this can be achieved in the current context without compromising the EU’s values and security is therefore needed. Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, there have been increasing calls from the EU for a more context-sensitive approach to its neighbours. RE-ENGAGE will assist the EU in determining how best to achieve this goal through an in-depth study of six cases – three in the Western Balkans and three in the Eastern Neighbourhood.

Challenges to EU foreign and security policy have been mounting in recent years. The dwindling global engagement of the US and the growing assertiveness of Russia and China hamper the ability of the EU and its member states to shape multilateral rules and compel them to rethink their role along new patterns of multipolar interactions. The collapse or severe weakening of state authority in the EU’s neighbourhood create interconnected challenges extending into policy areas outside the remit of foreign and security policy, thus augmenting the need for an integrated response. Meanwhile, the emergence of nationalist forces often espousing Eurosceptic views complicates efforts to reach intra-EU consensus on international security matters. The interplay between these factors is most evident in the EU’s difficulty in addressing crises and conflicts. JOINT, a project involving 14 partners from 12 countries, will analyse how intra-EU contestation, regional fragmentation and multipolar competition affect the capacity of the EU to set foreign and security policy objectives and generate and integrate diplomatic, military, economic and other sectorial capabilities to handle conflicts, crises and relations with external players. It will devise assessment criteria for effective foreign and security policy governance structures involving EU institutions and member states, encompassing multiple policy areas and unfolding in different formats of engagement of external players. It will survey public perceptions to inform an assessment of the political acceptability of an enhanced EU foreign, security and defence policy. And it will promote mutual learning between researchers and policymakers through the secondment of scholars to the foreign ministries of France, Germany and Italy, as well as the EEAS. JOINT will advance our knowledge of how EU foreign and security policy can become more joined-up and sustainable in an increasingly complex and contested world.