Sofia Perez
Jean Monnet Chair in European Governance (2025-2028)
Advancing Policy for an Ecological Digital Transition (APEX)
The aim of the Jean Monnet Chair in European Governance, held by Sofia A. Perez, Associate Professor of Political Science and European Politics , is to further the Jean Monnet Program’s objective of advancing excellence in teaching and research on the EU in higher education. The Chair also serves the Pardee School of Global Studies’ objective of preparing students for the challenges of a changing world, one in which the European Union is a key global actor.
Professor Perez’s Jean Monnet project – Advancing Policy for an Ecological Digital Transition (APEX) – contributes to and enhances the efforts of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Europe to promote the promote a deeper understanding of Europe through its cultural heritage; its political, economic, legal, and religious histories; its art, literature, music, and philosophy; as well as through its emergence as a new kind of supranational entity, the European Union. The Center, in addition to encouraging the study of Europe through its European Studies BA and minor as well as a new graduate certificate, has a well-established record of sponsoring public events that highlight the EUs role as a major economic and humanitarian actor.
Prof. Perez will offer two EU-focused courses during each year of her Chair, expanding EU Studies at BU to include the political economy of the EU, with a particular focus on the EU’s strategic priorities of advancing the global green and digital transitions.
With the support of her Jean Monnet grant, Prof. Perez will carry out a multiyear research project to evaluate how EU priorities involving the Green and Digital transitions can be reconciled and made to support a third EU strategic priority: that of boosting the economic resilience of Europe in the face of external challenges as well as the competitiveness of its firms in a world of accelerating technological change. In collaboration with the Center for the Study of Europe, she will host a number of workshops and roundtable events on these themes.
Finally, Prof. Perez’s Jean Monnet research project will form the basis for a book manuscript that identifies synergies and tensions between environmental and digital development policies and the contribution that a more robust capital market union (as proposed in the Draghi report) can play in this area. Professor Perez theorizes that policies aiming to advance the green and digital transition should be evaluated through two lenses: that of their contributions to the primary objectives to which they are directed (green transition or technological transition) and that of an emerging “industrial policy” that aims to strengthen the strategic autonomy of the EU in a world of accelerating technological change.