25-26 June 2009
London School of Economics
The 4th Hellenic Observatory PhD Symposium was held on 25 and 26 June and attracted over 100 paper givers from Europe and beyond. As ever the topics of PhD research were diverse and we had to divide the 27 specialist panels into 5 sessions to accommodate them all.
We were also genuinely pleased to be able to host three eminent plenary speakers. On the first day, Professor Paschalis Kitromilides, Director of the Institute of Neohellenic Research in Greece, gave a valuable introduction of the ‘do’s’ and ‘don't’s’ in academic research in the study of nationalism. Later in the evening, Alexis Papahelas, Editor of Kathimerini, entertained the audience to a prescient and pithy overview of the major problems confronting the Greek political system and identifying the areas of reform to be prioritised.
Rounding off the Symposium, the third plenary speaker Professor Nicos Christodoulakis, visiting the Hellenic Observatory as National Bank of Greece Senior Research Fellow, spoke to the theme of market reform in Greece.
The Symposium also gave us the opportunity to launch a book by the Hellenic Observatory Director, Professor Kevin Featherstone and Dr Dimitris Papadimitriou entitled The Limits of Europeanization: Reform Capacity and Policy Conflict in Greece, published by Palgrave Macmillan.
We would also like to thank the Greek Politics Group of the PSA for their generous donation of 2 x £200 prizes to scholars (to be selected) who presented at the LSE Hellenic Observatory’s 4th PhD Symposium on Contemporary Greece and Cyprus.