One of the country’s leading Eurosceptics and the UK’s foremost expert on its relationship with the EU will come together to ask whether you can be a good European, but still want to leave the EU, in a public debate at Queen Mary.

The debate features Conservative MP Douglas Carswell, a long-term campaigner for the idea that Britain would be ‘better off out’ of the EU, and Sir Stephen Wall, a former diplomat, head of the European Secretariat of the Cabinet Office and author of The Official History of Britain and the European Community.

The event will launch the Centre for European Research (CER) at Queen Mary – a new study centre aiming to promote excellence in teaching and learning on matters related to Europe.

The CER will provide a platform for engaging research students with an interest on Europe from different disciplinary backgrounds. The Centre’s members will combine research seminars, lectures, conferences and visiting speakers with the development of close relationships between the academic community and policy officials, NGOs and business leaders.

Based in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, the CER brings together:

• Professor Tim Bale, British and European party politics expert and occasional Guardian and Financial Times columnist
• Professor Adam Fagan, a Political Scientist whose research focuses on the Europeanisation of the post-conflict former Yugoslav states of the Western Balkans
• Professor Kenneth Armstrong, a specialist in European Union law and policy.
• Dr Rainbow Murray, who focuses on gender and politics, French and comparative politics, elections and political parties
• Dr Sarah Wolff, EU security and migration researcher
• Dr Paul Copeland, whose interdisciplinary research looks at EU social policy and the effectiveness of current governance tools within Social Europe

The CER will host two highly successful and prestigious publications: the Taylor and Francis journal East European Politics (formerly the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics), edited by Professor Adam Fagan, and the European Journal for Political Research Political Data Yearbook, co-edited by Dr Rainbow Murray.

Followed by a drinks reception.

For more information please click here or email Sarah Cox, Public Relations Officer, Queen Mary, University of London.