The internationalisation of social phenomena, in general, and the emergence of a European society and the ever-tighter integration of European nation states within the context of the European Union, in particular, are challenging international social science research. Knowledge about the implications of a transnational research approach for the practice of social research is still poor. This book sheds light on the experiences and challenges of a new international social research approach based on empirical data about European transnational socio-economic research projects – which were conducted under the European Union’s social science research programmes, featuring transnational, interdisciplinary, and applied or policy relevant social research. Building the European Research Area also presents considerations and recommendations regarding how to establish social sciences research infrastructures scaffolding transnational research in Europe.

The Editors: Michael Kuhn is a policy analyst and Director of the Forum for European Regional Research at the University of Bremen in Germany. He received his diploma in architecture at the Technical University of Berlin, his diploma in educational theory at the Freie Universität Berlin, and his Ph.D. in philosophies at the University of Bremen. He has worked on numerous international research and development projects, mainly under programmes of the European Union. Michael Kuhn has been project coordinator of six socio-economic research projects under European social research programmes. Svend Remøe is a policy analyst and Director of Prokontra AS. He received his Master of Business Administration at the University of Mannheim, Germany, and his Master of Arts in sociology at the University of Bergen, Norway. He has worked extensively in the area of innovation and technology policy and has had positions in the European Commission, DG Research, and OECD, Science and Technology Policy Division. Most recently he was the director of STEP – Centre for Innovation Research, Oslo.