Friday
9 July 2004
Professor
Helen Wallace
Public Orator, Professor
Dave Allen presented the Honorary Graduand at the Degree Ceremony
held on Friday 9 July 2004 at 3.00pm.
Chancellor, Vice Chancellor
and other officers of the University…..Honorary Graduands,
Ladies and Gentlemen and Graduands.
Helen Wallace is today
one of the leading scholars of the European Union. She has an
international academic reputation that encompasses Europe, the
United States and all other parts of the world where an academic
interest in the European Union is to be found. This short address
will focus on two themes. that for me best sum up Helen Wallace’s
contribution. Firstly Helen has always sought to establish meaningful
links between the disciplines within the academic community, and
between the academic community and the world of practice and applied
expertise – a world which includes but which is not limited
to government. Secondly, Professor Wallace has worked throughout
her career to identify and involve the very best young researchers
in Europe and the United States .She has worked tirelessly to
prevent the study of the European Union from becoming either indulgently
introspective (isolated in ivory towers) or the victim of the
exclusivity and cronyism of a particular generation or group of
scholars. Wherever in the world the European Union is considered
important you will find leading academics and practioners who
have been taught by, encouraged or worked alongside Helen Wallace.
Her writings are to be found in every University library but it
is the network of scholars who recognise both intellectual and
personal debts to Helen Wallace that is most striking.
Professor Wallace studied
at Oxford and at the College of Europe and had intended to work
in the Treasury. Marriage instead took her to Manchester where
she completed a PhD on the domestic policy-making implications
of Britain’s then EC application – a subject which
in the late 60s early 70s Helen characterized as the ‘domestication’
effect of EU membership. Helen’s pioneering work in this
area was some 2O years ahead of what has now become the sprawling
notion of ‘Euuropeanisation’. Helen was appointed
to UMIST to a newly conceived Department of European Studies,
similar to and established at the same time as the then Department
of European Studies here at Loughborough.
At UMIST Helen and
her husband (Professor William (now Lord) Wallace) gathered together
a then small group of EC/EU scholars to produce the first edited
research text on EU policy-making – a text which is about
to be published in its 6th edition and which is recognised internationally
for its cutting edge scholarship produced by a constantly updated
mix of established and new scholars, From UMIST Helen moved to
the Civil Service College including a secondment to the FCO and
then in 1985 to the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham
House) to direct the West European Programme. During these years
Helen’s own research and writing covered a wide variety
of aspects of European integration from work on the Council of
Ministers the EU Presidency and EU finances to a study of British
and European space policy. Her teaching focused in particular
on the need to bring academics and practioners together to mutually
enhance their understanding of the workings of the EU –
a subject which despite the clarity of Professor Wallace’s
writing still mystifies many including, I suspect some of our
own graduands here today.
In 1992 Professor Wallace
was appointed to a chair at Sussex and there she founded the Sussex
European Institute. Under Helen’s leadership the SEI rapidly
established a global reputation and has become a formidable and
much respected competitor for other centres, such as Loughborough
working in this field. In 1998 Helen was appointed to direct one
of the largest research programmes on the EU conceived in the
UK. The ‘One Europe or Several’ Programme funded by
the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council was notable for
its pioneering work on the then projected enlargement of the EU
and for the platform that it gave most especially to young scholars
– a far-sighted strategy pursued by Professor Wallace but
not always appreciated by some of older colleagues ( I hesitate
to use the term old lags) whose work was not funded. In 2001 Helen
moved to the European University Institute in Florence to become
the Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Study where
she has continued to pursues the study of European integration,
emphasizing the two themes that I mentioned at the beginning of
my oration – encouraging the disciplines like History, Political
Science, Economics and Law to work together , encouraging academics
and practioners to work together and - above all – encouraging
young scholars to work with and to challenge their peers so as
to advance our understanding of Europe.
It is pleasure to welcome
Helen Wallace back to Leicestershire where she has close family
connections and to the University where she was the first external
examiner in the then Department of European Studies. Therefore
Chancellor I have the honour to present to you and to the whole
University, Professor Helen Wallace for the degree of Doctor of
Letters, honoris causa.
