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NOTES AND RELECTIONS

ERANETISATION

ZANE ŠIME

zane.sime@rsu.lv

She is a doctoral degree holder (Dr. Philos.) of the Norwegian University of Science and

Technology (Norway). From December 2023 until March 2025, she was a Visting Research Fellow

at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-

CRIS). Dr. Šime prepared this article during her UNU-CRIS fellowship. Currently, she is an Earth

System Governance Fellow and Expert at Rīga Stradiņš University. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-

4690-3243 , Scopus ID: 57220066789, Web of Science Researcher ID: JAN-4789-2023

‘Eranetisation’ is the latest term to join the overall academic and policy-making jargon

of the European Studies. The term refers to the modalities of the socialisation and

acculturation environment faced by various experts who are interested in the cutting-

edge, context-specific, and societal challenge-driven advanced research and innovation

solutions hosted by the European Research Area framework field. This supranational

governance construct has developed its unique milieu with its own Bourdieusian field

dynamics, performances grounded in this distinct post-Westphalian habitus, and

understandings of its sui generis doxa. To turn towards the European Research Area in

various capital pursuits means to expose oneself to the supranational steering structures

and channel individual or institutional interests along the lines of the EU-defined issue

framings and rules of engagement. However, ‘Eranetisation’ looks beyond these

formalities. The study of ‘Eranetisation’ is meant to better grasp the full scope of the

European Union’s intellectual resonance domestically and internationally in the advanced

research, science, innovation, and technological advancement domains. ‘Eranetisation’

explains the attractiveness of the European Research Area. Through an in-depth enquiry

into the collegial rapport-building routines, ‘Eranetisation’ elaborates that the European

Research Area is a globally renowned magnet of the leading scientific achievements.

Introduction

The European integration is ornated with its ability and propensity to generate various

effects and incentive structures across multiple domains. The expanding reservoir of

terms is fuelled by the perpetual inventiveness of policymakers and the advanced

research sector. The ‘Brussels Effect,’ coined by Anu Bradford, is among some of the

most widely debated and studied recent inventions (Eustace, 2024). ‘European Dream’

retains its appeal as a reference point for an ideal work setting and geopolitical belonging

to an integrated space where quality goods, talent, and information circulate freely and

securely (Prainsack & Toom, 2013, p. 78). ‘Eurocracy’ refers to the understanding of

European Union (EU) institutions as a united social space with its unique interactive

dynamics and quests for an influential position (Gaïti & Georgakakis, 2024, p. 454).

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‘Brusselisation’ retains its enduring saliency. The term facilitates the analytical enquiry

into the particularities of the socialisation milieu experienced by officials working or

seconded to Brussels (Maurer & Wright, 2021, pp. 858, 861). ‘Brusselisation’ has a

special role because it has served as an inspiration to coin a new term, ‘Eranetisation.’

The recently introduced European Research Area-related expression is a testimony to the

ever-expanding EU capacity and the growing EU international standing. Each of these

terms refers to the increasing ability of the EU to adopt and implement a joint stance

internally and articulate its supranational interests internationally with an increasing

capacity to shape the opinions and preferred action modes among a broad range of

interlocutors.

In essence, ‘Eranetisation’ refers to the intellectual process of a comprehensive

socialisation among beneficiaries of the EU-funded initiatives tied to the strategic

governance framework of the European Research Area. This ad-hoc or incremental

exposure and immersion into the European Research Area results in a better awareness

about the valued competencies among various intellectual circles hosted by the European

Research Area. Consequently, more engagement in sharing one’s expertise with peers

fosters like-mindedness and solidifies shared cognisance. Consequently, many of these

interactions lead to more consolidated estimations concerning the best or preferable

options for joint action. Facilitated by various funding mechanisms that are shouldered

by the EU Framework Programmes and routine complementarities brought by other EU

funding programmes with some advanced research and innovation support component

(for some examples, see Stone, 2024, pp. 193, 198), ‘Eranetisation’ enables the study

of the governance steering mechanisms and specific incentive structures that the EU has

put in place to direct the talent flows and collegial networks towards increasingly

consolidated efforts in addressing the contemporary grand challenges. ‘Eranetisation’

offers a more in-depth explanation about the value of bilaterally or multilaterally tailored

research-intensive solutions to issues and challenges faced across the globe.

‘Eranetisation’ is an analytical enabler to study how politically recognised, the most

pressing societal issues are faced by adopting tailored supranational policy measures and

programming tools to pool the required talent, expertise, and know-how towards

resolving these urgent needs. This is accomplished within a single integrated and

internationally considerably open intellectual framework field, the European Research

Area.

Bourdieu-inspired practice theory

The notion of ‘Eranetisation’ emerges from the contemporary Bourdieu-inspired practice

theory scholarship (Author, 2023). The contemporary reading of fields, habitus, capital,

doxa, and agents are essential elements for the study of ever-evolving relationality ties

of peer circles in multiple contexts, including the advanced research one. The burgeoning

Bourdieu-inspired scholarship is heterogenous. This diversity of current research output

does not stem only from the vast choice of chosen research methods and selected

empirical contexts (Sus, 2024, p. 437). The way scholars across multiple disciplines and

in various parts of the world have reinterpreted and re-actualised Bourdieu’s ideas has

given way to a myriad of perspectives on the fields, habitus, capital, doxa, and agents.

This multitude of new thinking on Bourdieu’s intellectual inheritance does not pose a

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major challenge for ‘Eranetisation.’ Instead, it is treated as a valuable repository of

diverse and highly relevant considerations that many authors bring into the academic

spotlight when addressing intellectual riddles guided by their practice theory reasoning.

To clarify the understanding adopted in the study of Eranetisation, the framework field

constitutes several subfields that may change in number and structure over time.

Subfields may merge, become obsolete, or multiply. These changes largely depend on

two aspects. The first one is centrally or supranational policy-level defined steering

measures. The second one is the choices made by agents themselves to seek and

maintain temporary or lasting allegiances with certain peers. The second aspect brings

into the analytical picture various understandings and configurations of advanced

research cores and peripheries shaped by multiple EU funding instruments, including the

socio-economic implications that this positionality is claimed to maintain in Europe (Péti

et al., 2024, p. 17), its neighbourhood (Góra, 2023, pp. 188-189) and elsewhere in the

world (Echeverría-King et al., 2024, p. 405).

Habitus refers to the usual intellectual and social environment where the routine actions

of agents occur. Habitus is socially conditioned. The longer the time that the agent has

spent in one specific field, the more familiarity with the habitus and its collective rhythms

this agent has obtained. Habitus informs the agent about various conditionalities that

shape the overall field and a specific subfield or certain subfields at a certain period of

time. The temporality is stressed because habitus evolves along with the field. Habitus is

not static.

Capital refers to various cherished resources that are at agents’ disposal to be exchanged,

traded, and converted during their relational encounters and interactions in the

framework field. The routines associated with the capital transactions follow the overall

predispositions conditioned by habitus and doxa. Thereby, habitus and doxa provide

implicit intellectual and social guideposts for capital pursuits exerted by agents. They

interact in the field and its subfields in their attempt to increase their centrality and

nodality through peer recognition and acclaim.

Doxa is informative about the tacit and perceptive aspects that feed into the relational

dynamics among individual researchers and between two or multiple research circles

structured as an expert group or a consortium. Doxa provides individually held and

collectively upheld understandings of what is self-evident, self-explanatory, and outright

obvious. Doxa embodies a certain type of truth that is considered natural by agents and

guides their routine practices and relationality to others (Vakalopoulos, 2023, p. 262).

One particular doxa governs a framework field and its subfields. However, depending on

the length of time spent by an agent within the field and its subfields and individual prior

experiences, including their earlier habituses and upheld doxas, the understanding

among agents of the governing doxa may vary. The way a doxa of the field and its

subfields resonates with each agent may vary because of these unique experiential and

socialisation layers they have obtained throughout their academic and professional

careers and diverse encounters.

The savviest agents who have the most in-depth understanding of the doxa are the ones

who might prove to be the most versatile in capital transactions. Having a clear

understanding of the uncontested truths captured by the doxa contributes to the boldness

and ambition of an agent to engage in high-value capital acquisition pursuits and

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promotion of their own centrality within the field. Agent’s doxic aptness offers a sense of

firm rootedness in the field, a deeply held appraisal of habitus, certitude of one’s prowess

in sustaining a central role in the field, and the ability to engage in highly valued capital

exchange, trading, and co-creation.

Supranational routines

The dynamic evolution of the EU should be even better reflected in the progression of

the European Studies scholarship. While state-centred studies (for example, Abrantes &

Vaz-Pinto, 2024) and country comparisons are widespread in European Studies, many

supranational and post-Westphalian aspects of the EU deserve to be placed more

prominently on the research agenda. Eranetisation is among the intellectual means to

accomplish this need for a more supranationally and post-Westphalian-oriented analytical

gaze. It is one of the intellectual avenues to make supranationally steered dynamics more

understandable and better known among diverse audiences. The full added value of

research, public funding, and other types of EU-offered support deserves more scholarly

enquiry. Those are distinct incentive and steering measures that should not be equated

with the national ones.

The in-built supranational nature of these instruments and strategic frameworks requires

a recalibrated intellectual predisposition and commitment to colleagues worldwide that

takes as the core commitment the aspirations of the European project, not one EU

Member State. The post-Westphalian socialisation processes surpass amicable and close

ties among EU Member States. A study of post-Westphalian socialisation processes

requires studying in greater depth how agents build rapport with other fellow Europeans

when contributing to various initiatives of the EU. The importance of this analytical

enquiry is founded on the claim that the EU captures the grandest sui generis geopolitical

and geoeconomic initiative of the 21st century. This joint endeavour is structured

according to specific EU rules, practical guidance, and accountability requirements. The

intellectual productivity and multifaceted societal value are not attained simply through

accurate execution of the practical guidance and satisfactory completion of the

accountability requirements. The full intellectual magnitude of the EU-fostered

encounters in various formats, such as the strategic governance frameworks of which

the European Research Area is one example, is attained through dedicated service among

agents who have obtained an in-depth understanding of the contemporary requirements

and nature of the European project and the specificity of several EU instruments tied to

their area of expertise. Most importantly, their intellectual predisposition and

corresponding actions are guided by the commitment to the post-Westphalian ideals and

values. In such a manner, their supranationally-minded engagement facilitates the

projection of the EU norms, values, ideas, knowledge, and preferred course of future

action in a well-concerted manner with other fellow Europeans towards their colleagues

and peers across the world.

It is enduringly important to look beyond the quantitative country comparisons to get a

more fine-grained understanding of other allegiances than individually cherished

institutional, academic discipline, local, regional, and country-specific ones. Without

grasping those interactive components that predefine and anchor agents’ motivations to

the European Research Area, it is not possible to realise the full value added delivered

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by this EU strategic framework. The intellectual virtuosity exerted by the responsible EU

institutions in designing and overseeing the governance modalities and funding tools

supporting the European Research Area to strengthen the international projection of its

post-Westphalian stance deserves to be addressed in more nuance in the future scholarly

enquiry. Namely, the European Research Area is an admirable and multi-dimensional

resource for putting many commitments presented through the EU external action into

practice and tangible actions on the ground across the world.

Concluding remarks

The importance of the continuous study of Eranetisation is linked to the unique

administrative and socialisation space created for the strategic steering of advanced

research and science to address the contemporary challenges via the European Research

Area. The specificities of the governance set-up and the rules of engagement differ from

those characterising other EU policies and administrative spaces, such as the meeting

rooms and virtual convening spaces of the EU institutions where Brusselisation is fostered

among a vast number of officials representing several administrative ranks and

institutional affiliations.

The continuous strengthening of European unity with an international outreach

component evolves in multiple formats and forums. The European Research Area is one

of such essential strategic frameworks. Since its launch in 2000, the European Research

Area has experienced a significant expansion and evolution. Thus, the study of

Eranetisation should account for the fluid nature of this framework and subfield-specific

developments at specific points in time. Only with such attention to the temporality of

certain collegial relationality patterns is it possible to properly account for the nature of

Eranetisation. At the centre of the Eranetisation scholarly enquiry is a social process of

peer ties, expert-level interactions, and reproduction of certain stances and truths

through shared practices of capital transactions. These reproduction patterns are not

static. This attests to the enduring saliency of the enquiry into the characteristics of

Eranetisation and the exploration of what draws most past, present, and aspiring

beneficiaries of the EU funding and participation in the project consortiums.

The types of capital exchanged and co-created across the European Research Area are

diverse. Scientifically excellent and collegially praised accomplishments are only one of

them. The discussions revolving around the third mission of academia are the most

emblematic examples of multiple forms of capital. These deliberations refer to the myriad

of roles and functions shouldered by the contemporary academic and advanced research

sectors. Moreover, the European Research Area is expected to offer solutions to various

societal challenges. Thereby, the multitude of expertise brought to, exchanged, and co-

created within the European Research Area requires acknowledging that there is no one

standardised capital traded across the European Research Area. Those are multiple types

of capital or capitals. These are transmutable capitals. They are constantly shuffled across

the European Research Area framework field.

The Eranetisation studies will not lose their importance because a better and more

nuanced understanding of what drives various entities towards the European Research

Area framework field and what keeps the longstanding agents in it are crucial answers

to the European project at large. Equally, those who are reluctant to participate after

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their first involvements with this governance framework deserve equal attention to better

grasp what stands in the way of certain talent and expertise to become ‘Eranetised’ and

fed into the thematically relevant formats shouldered by the European Research Area.

Multiple instruments that support the European Research Area are aimed at offering

feasible, pragmatic, and tailored solutions to some of the most pressing contemporary

challenges faced in various parts of the globe. Thus, the study of Eranetisation is

instrumental to understanding the incentive structure that pools in the EU supranational

direction various expertise for it to be channelled in time-bound, action-oriented

interventions across the world that cover multiple EU policy areas. The actions hosted by

the strategic framework field of the European Research Area address issues across a

broad scope of EU policies. Thereby, Eranetisation captures a structural incentive that is

not restricted solely to the research and innovation domain. Eranetisation functions as a

complementary technique to facilitate the attraction of niche-specific or world-class

expertise to the EU-supported action that does not substitute the steering and convening

measures adopted for other EU policies. Eranetisation occurs simultaneously to those

other processes as a complementary socialisation element to the benefit of concerted

action. Therefore, so-to-say, ‘going ERA’ is among one of the measures of how to

contribute to supranationally defined milestones.

Importantly, other EU policies and their corresponding policy steering wheels might

deliver incentive measures different from those fostered through ‘Eranetisation’.

Consequently, future research should attempt to demarcate the boundaries of

‘Eranetisation’ and distinguish this intellectual and collegiality-driven, result-oriented

incentive measure from those projected through the implementation means chosen for

other EU sectorial policies or issue-specific frameworks. Complementarities between

‘going ERA’ and being influenced by other EU supranational incentive structures should

be properly accounted for. It is essential to avoid transforming ‘Eranetisation’ into an

overstretched or empty signifier.

The wealth of EU financial resources allocated for diverse programming tools, such as

the EU Framework Programmes and other schemes, ensures the required rich empirical

sources for this research thread. There are plenty of avenues for a more in-depth enquiry

into the multifaceted forms of ‘Eranetisation’ experienced across diverse professions and

experts engaged in the daily collaborative routines of the European Research Area.

Notably, scholars and academic staff are naturally placed in the limelight. Nevertheless,

other EU beneficiaries, such as academic administrators and private and non-

governmental establishments, should not be neglected because of their unique mandates

and perspectives on the value and assets offered by the European Research Area.

Most importantly, the open-mindedness characterising the present-day European Studies

towards cross- and multi-disciplinary research designs and collective scholarly

engagements works in favour of a comprehensive and nuanced future study of

‘Eranetisation’. Altogether, this is not a groundbreaking exploratory path for the

European Studies. ‘Eranetisation’ is a noteworthy incremental sign of the overall

expansion and evolution of European Studies occurring simultaneously with the

development of the EU itself as an ever more capable, increasingly consolidated, and

influential supranational entity with a solid international footprint and diverse ties to

various parts of the world.

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How to cite this note

Šime, Zane (2026). Eranetisation. Janus.net, e-journal of international relations. VOL. 17, Nº. 1,

May 2026, pp. 667-674. DOI https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.17.1.03