Mixing Teaching, Research and Expertise Within the Jean Monnet Chair Framework

This chapter explains the added value of learning the EU via interactive academic teaching and focused training provided by experts and practitioners. The EUMedEA Crash Course (CC) is an intensive training course mixing teaching, research and expertise funded by the European Commission via the EUMedEA Jean Monnet Chair. It was held for three editions (2016–2018) at the University of Catania. Based upon studying and sharing the expertise on crisis at the EU Mediterranean borders, this intensive learning experience allowed young and senior researchers to interact in a qualified academic context by looking at the on-field activities of the experts directly involved in the crisis management, in Italy or in other Mediterranean countries. The selected topic – crises at the EU Mediterranean borders and migration in particular – has involved an international group of instructors and researchers who profited of the expertise of those who experience practices on the ground. The EUMedEA CC tried to bridge the gap between academia and experts by providing excellence teaching, focusing on a various range of crisis managers willing to share their everyday business. New crises require new actors, strategies and instruments, thus new analytical tools to understand new and old practices to address crises in the Mediterranean area are needed. In sum, by providing an innovative teaching based upon experience on the ground, this CC has brought the EU as a crisis manager closer to European (young) researchers.