Project team

Philomena Murray is Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Melbourne. Between 2014 and 2017 she was Research Director on Regional Governance in the European Union (EU) Centre on Shared Complex Challenges. From 2000 to 2009 she was Director of the Contemporary Europe Research Centre, Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence. She holds Australia’s only Jean Monnet Chair ad personam awarded by the EU. She received a national Carrick (Australian Learning and Teaching Council) Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning for pioneering the first European Union curriculum in Australia and leadership in national and international curriculum development. She is an assessor for the Australian Research Council; the European Research Council and national schemes. A former diplomat, she has run training courses on the EU for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.

She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Business at Trinity College Dublin; Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges and Associate Research Fellow at UNU-CRIS (United Nations University - Comparative Regional Integration Studies), Bruges. She is Vice-Chair of the Board of the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on European Unification. She is founder of the Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia.

She has won numerous EU grants. She led and coordinated the successful $1million joint Australian government/EU funded Coursework Masters Exchange Program in International Relations: A European-Australian Asia-Pacific Nexus (EAAPN), 2003-09. She currently holds a Jean Monnet teaching module entitled Comparative Regional Governance.

Her research interests are in comparative regional integration; EU-Asia relations; EU-Australia relations and EU governance and legitimacy.

Publications include:

• Longo, M. and Murray, P. (2015). Europe’s Legitimacy Crisis: From Causes to Solutions. Palgrave Pivot
• Brennan, L. and Murray, P. (2015). Drivers of Integration and Regionalism in Europe and Asia: Comparative Perspectives. Routledge
• Christiansen, T., Kirchner, E. and Murray, P. (eds.,) (2013). The Palgrave Handbook of EU-Asia Relations. Palgrave
• Murray, P. and Rees, N. (eds.,). “European and Asian Regionalism: Form and Function,” in International Politics 47, 3/4, May-July 2010
• Murray, P. (ed.,) (2008). Europe and Asia: Regions in Flux. Palgrave
• Murray, P. (2005). Australia and the European Superpower. Melbourne University Press

She is co-editing a special issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs on EU-Australia Relations with Dr Margherita Matera.

Dr Margherita Matera

Margherita Matera’s research focuses on the EU’s security and defence cooperation, the EU as a foreign policy, security and crisis management actor, NATO and the transatlantic relationship, EU-Australia relations, and comparative regionalism. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Summer Research Scholar Program Grant from the European Union Center of Excellence and European Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

Margherita teaches on EU integration, comparative European politics and international relations. She has been a researcher on several EU funded grants. She is co-editing a special issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs on EU-Australia Relations with Professor Philomena Murray.

She is member of the Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia’s Executive Committee and a member of the editorial board of Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies.