PRC Delft is a relatively new part of SPS. Set up in 2017 by the European Policies Research Centre (EPRC, University of Strathclyde), it was originally established under a cooperation agreement between Strathclyde and TU Delft to enable the EU research and knowledge exchange carried out by EPRC to continue after Brexit.
Why come to SPS? One reason is that SPS and EPRC researchers have been collaborating for several years, including in a major H2020 project ‘COHESIFY’.
Strathclyde and TUD are also both strategic partners in a European university consortium, CESAER. Most of all, though, EPRC and SPS have complementary research interests: we have international reputations in regional development policy and spatial planning respectively; we each see great potential in collaborating on research and education; and we work well together. This cooperation is already paying off with several joint projects for the European Commission and ESPON, and project bids submitted to H2020 and the NWO. A joint PhD cluster is also in the pipeline. Our EPRC researchers, Fabian Gal and Wilbert den Hoed, are now embedded in their BG. W. 270 office, and virtually all EPRC staff have come out for shorter or longer stays in the past two years.
In the days after the UK referendum in June 2016, when EPRC was beginning their EU27 location search, Vincent Nadin said: “Delft might be the ideal base, it could be a win-win for SPS and EPRC”. Prophetic words: our partnership is already shaping up to be a great success!
Text by John Bachtler, Professor of European Policy Studies and a Director of EPRC at the University of Strathclyde