The EU Centre for Global Affairs Annual Grant Program recipient Professor Richard Pomfret has been named Jean Monnet Chair on the Economics of European Integration. This prestigious three-year appointment will commence in September 2017 and is funded by the Partnership Initiative of the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Programme.

The primary objective of the Chair is to embed and deepen teaching in the field of European Economic Integration within the curriculum taught at The University of Adelaide, most particularly in the Economics of European Integration. Drawing on The University of Adelaide’s extensive expertise and long-standing international reputation in economics, this will be achieved through the development and delivery of formal academic coursework, supervision of research and professional training and outreach activities designed to prepare our graduates and existing members of the business and government communities to effectively engage with EU matters in their learning, research and professional activities.

The Chair will enhance the University’s growing international reputation on EU-Australian economic research, since the establishment of the EU Centre for Global Affairs within the Institute for International Trade in 2014.

Richard Pomfret is Professor of Economics at The University of Adelaide. Prior to this appointment, he held similar positions at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Bologna and Nanjing. He has worked at Concordia University in Montréal and the Institut für Weltwirtschaft in Kiel, and held visiting positions at universities in Australia, Canada, China, France, Italy and the US. He is an honorary Fellow of the Centre for Euro-Asian Studies at the University of Reading, CASE in Warsaw, IfW Kiel and Université-Paris. Richard has worked for the UN and OECD, and consulted to the Australian Government and international organisations such as the World Bank, ADB and UN Development Program, as well as advising the EU BOMCA program in 2006-7. He has published over 100 papers and 17 books on economic development and international economics, including a recent analysis of the changes to the geographical composition of the EU and its effect on the level, direction and composition of Australian-EU trade.