1) Slovak Philosophy Olympiad on the EU Issues
i) 2023/2024. On November 14, 2023 our faculty welcomed 169 high-school students who attended the first round of the philosophy Olympiad. Winners of the first round were awarded during a ceremony on January 23, 2024 and they attended the second qualifying round of the Olympiad. Two most successful students attended the international round in Helsinki in May 2024.
ii) 2024/2025. On December 3, 2024 our faculty welcomed 120 high-school students who attended the first round of the philosophy Olympiad. Winners of the first round were awarded during a ceremony On March 19, 2025 and they attended the second qualifying round of the Olympiad. The most successful students from this qualifying round attended the international round in Bari in May 2025.
iii) 2025/2026. On November 11, 2025 our faculty welcomed 93 high-school students who attended the first round of the philosophy Olympiad. Winners of the first round were awarded during a ceremony on March 18, 2026 and they attended the second qualifying round of the Olympiad. The most successful students from this qualifying round attended international round in Warsaw in May 2006.
2) Public talks and/or discussions on Climate, Conflict and Migration from the European Perspective
i) National Parks with Marian Jasik and Daniel Dite. The first public discussion on an environmental topic was held on April 18, 2024. More information is on our faculty website and a recording is available on Youtube.
ii) International crisis management in post-conflict regions with Tomas Klopta. The second public discussion on a topic of crisis management was held on April 30, 2025. More information is on our faculty website.
iii) Migration and Europe with Omar Sayfo. The third and final public discussion on a topic of migration was held on March 11, 2026. More information about the event organized in cooperation with Ruzomberok Hanus days.
3) Project website and media presence
The EUPECCOM project has its own website with all the information about its activities and a blog section.
The interview with David Palatinus about the EUPECCOM project.
Report from the International Philosophy Olympiad in Helsinki in May 2024.
Report from the International Philosophy Olympiad in Bari in May 2025.
Report from the International Philosophy Olympiad in Warsaw in May 2026.
4) Online materials
Students prepared several videos for their EUPECCOM courses classes. These videos present various views and arguments on specific European topics.
5) Research on the European Perspectives on Climate, Conflict and Migration
We prepared 3 scholarly papers on the topics of the project.
i) Eugen Zelenak, Do Histories of Europe Represent? Historyka. Studia Metodologiczne 55, 2025, 237-256. pdf
Abstract: Several case studies explore the plurality of historical accounts discussing past events of limited scope. In this paper, I focus on two historical works about the history of Europe. I show that even works of this large a scale offer specific perspectives on how to approach the past. After analysing two historical books I explore the background and the views of their authors which motivate their accounts. My examination implies it is problematic to see historical works as straightforward representations, for it is implausible to analyse them in terms of a correspondence between historical texts and the past reality. Hence, I use the case study to challenge representationalism. Instead, I argue, history should be approached differently, along the lines of non‑representationalism focusing on the concrete steps historians take, on the special origin of their works and specific motivation informing their accounts.
ii) David L. Palatinus, Imaginaries of Planetary Futures: The Expanse and Democracy-to-Come. Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 32.1, 2026, 161-186. pdf
Abstract: This article looks at The Expanse (Syfy/Amazon Prime 2015–2022) as an example of Anthropocene television that stages a form of utopianism that is neither naive nor posthumanly nihilistic but aligned with a notion of “democracy-to-come” under the conditions of the Anthropocene. The program text offers parabolic reflections on the underlying capitalistic and colonial logic of Western anthropocentrism in its depictions of the colonization of worlds beyond the Solar System, thus directly challenging the Earth-centric and anthropocentric stances underlying (human) history. The series challenges the binary logic of the (human) “us” vs. the (nonhuman/alien) “them” and gestures towards the inherent heterogeneity of the human itself. Furthermore, the paper comments on the ways The Expanse envisions a future which is always-already deterritorialized and what this means for our lived experiences of crises in relation to concepts of democracy: it comments on what the relation between the pervasiveness of political, economic, and environmental anxieties and the related ethical dilemmas of our present historic time are, and what the nexus between utopianism and democracy reveals about the futures of the human-to-come.
iii) David L. Palatinus, Climate-Conflict-Migration: A TV Studies Perspective. In: Elke Weissmann-David L. Palatinus (eds): Television and Sustainability: Technology, Industry, and Cultural Form in a time of Permacrisis. Peter Lang, 2026. (accepted and to be published in 2026)
This chapter tackles the interrelation of climate, conflict and migration, and the ways their pertaining ecological, political, and ethical complexities are imagined and circulated via various cultural practices and ways of symbolisation that television as a dominant mode of storytelling uses. Forms of conflict, and in their wake, migration have become key players in the recent radicalisation of global politics and have frequently been construed in political discourses as threats to national security and to the perceived cultural values in Western societies. From Huntington’s highly controversial Clash of Civilizations (1996) to Derrida’s concept of ‘hostipitality’ (2000) to Zizek’s ideas about the militarisation of society (2015) to Thomas Nail’s Theory of the Border (2016), conflict and migration have been mobilised as political capital as well as new critical idioms that thematise discourses on how we understand human subjectivity, and the ways we negotiate historical and cultural legacies of territory, identity, safety, economic interests and democratic liberties. The recent emergence of populist agendas also necessitates a radical rethinking of issues ranging from politics of inclusion to social mobility to climate justice and violent borders. On the other hand, a growing body of scholarship (see for instance Abel et al., 2019) suggests a correlation between climate change, violent conflicts and forced migration. Research on global security, exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past years, established itself as one of the pivotal areas in discourses on sustainability.
Therefore, this chapter bridges the gap between current political discourses and the ways in which television responds to the emerging anxieties around the construction and circulation of cultural ideas about the multi-faceted relations between conflict, climate, and migration. It looks at the ways in which symbolic representations render the subjective dimensions of conflict, from heroism and sacrifice to devastation, victimisation and suffering, and, conversely, the ways in which screen narratives are also weaponized and will have produced paradoxical responses among audiences in different geographic contexts. How television (and media) scholarship critically assess the impact of screen narratives on the dynamics of climate, conflict and migration? How can audiences harness the potential of television for peace-making and reconciliation? How can showrunners ensure the ethical and responsible use of screen media in situations of conflict? How ‘sustainable’ are the cultural ideas that such fictional representations circulate? This complex and dynamic media landscape poses new challenges and opportunities for negotiating the causes, consequences and responses to contemporary conflicts, as well as the roles and responsibilities of different actors involved in them.
Useful links
Stefania Achella and David Levente Palatinus (eds.): Itinerari LIX – Perspectives in the Anthropocene: Beyond Nature and Culture? Collana: Itinerari, 2020. (A special issue of a journal edited by our project leader, also on the topics of our EUPECCOM project.) open access pdf
„In Conversation: Television and Governance by David Levente Palatinus and Elke Waissmann“ (A podcast that looks at the nexus between governance and media (television in particular). It offers a brief overview of the multiple approaches, and more specifically looks at algorithmic governance.)