Founded in 1992, the Sussex European Institute (SEI) is an interdisciplinary research hub that brings together scholars and experts whose work engages with Europe’s political institutions, political economy, and its historical legacies.

SEI facilitates a dialogue between scholars based in various departments across and beyond the University of Sussex, including disciplines such as History, Sociology, Politics, Law, International Relations and Postcolonial Studies, Anthropology, Migration Studies, and European Studies. Our community of scholars also works closely with practitioners, policy makers and the voluntary sector.

Europe is often seen as a realm - or even cradle of - democracy, freedom, and rights. Other times, European integration is viewed as in perpetual crisis. In our understanding, Europe not only takes shape through such projected self-images, but also constitutes itself through European states’ and institutions’ historic and contemporary actions – which have crafted internal power asymmetries and produced global inequalities.