Indian and European Advanced Research Network (IEARN)
IEARN is an informal network of research institutions based in Europe and in India, whose purpose is to foster research where the cooperation between European and Indian scholars arises through common interests and sense of shared predicaments. The network is not designed to conduct the research itself. Its endeavor is to initiate and to encourage a new style of research between the participating institutes through a series of “conversations”, workshops and small meetings structured on a regular basis, which lead to further specific research activities within each of the participating institutes. The network thus seeks to develop communities of academics, intellectuals, practitioners and policy makers, drawn from Europe, India, and across the world, who are able to formulate and recognize common problems requiring study and research: research which can show what is at once particular and universal to these common problems. In focusing on the European and the Indian experiences, the network simply intends to provide the initial material from which to draw questions of sufficient breadth and precision. But other relevant partners may be associated to the dialogue, especially from China and Africa.
The focus area „Law, Politics and Constitutionalism“ examines India and Europe as spaces defined by constitutional law and the operations of democratic politics. The project "Democracy in Diversity: Indian and European Perspectives", included three workshop seminars in Bangalore (2014), Berlin (2015) and Delhi (2016). The workshops' endeavour is not only a book project with a selection of of articles each co-authored by an Indian and a European scholar („Democratic Constitutionalism in Continental Polities: India and the European Union compared“, Edward Elgar (contract signed, forthcoming 2020), with Arun Thiruvengadam), but also to encourage scholarship on comparative constitutional law in the India-EU context as well as to foster long-term cooperation between the Indian and the European partner institutions.
From 2019 to 2020 another workshop series on „Transformative Constitutionalism“ is planned.