✨ A year of glitter: 🇪🇺 The home of collaboration

📸 Copyright: Christian van't Hoen

✨ Last May I went to Aachen to see the President of the European Commission, who this year was awarded the Charlemagne Prize for her merits in the field of Europe integration.

On this occasion, I was handed the paper copy of the "Report on the Future of the Union I 75 Years of Charlemagne Prize: Anniversary edition". This is a very special publication for me, as on page 92 it contains the results of the research I worked on during my fellowship year 23/24, which ended at the end of 2024 with the selection of a new batch of outstanding fellows. This publication includes my results at page 92 of the publication, which can be found digitally on the Academy's website.

The working papers end usually with a phrase that, since my first international research (the one on sanctions against Russia), I always use at the end of my works: looking back and looking forward.

Today is July 3rd—a date layered with meaning. It marks the birthday of Franz Kafka, whose vision of transformation and ambiguity deeply inspired this blog during its “year of metamorphosis.” Just a month ago, on June 9th, we remembered the death of Emperor Nero, a ruler often associated with excess and destruction—yet also with the paradox of rebuilding, as seen in the Domus Aurea. Between these two figures—Kafka and Nero—lies a thread of collapse and change. And then, from deeper antiquity, a third layer: a rare eclipse recorded on July 3rd, 123 BC, centuries before the golden age of Hadrian. Though the most notable eclipse of Hadrian’s actual reign would arrive on June 27th, 133 AD, these celestial shadows echo the cycles of light and uncertainty that shape both empires and individuals. Hadrian’s era came to symbolize balance, art, and architectural harmony—offering a counterpoint to Nero’s ruin and Kafka’s existential disquiet.

This year, instead, the theme was glitter and, as no post was done so far as I was busy with the fellowship, I though of doing a masterpost celebreating a year of glitter and the publishing of the Home of collaboration. Let's look back at what inspired this year, so we can move forward with a new theme for the blog.

Looking back 

Growing up in the Europe of the late 1990s and early 2000s—an era of integration and cultural convergence—taught me that diplomacy and mathematics, public service and innovation, don’t need to be in conflict. What I came to believe is that real progress happens when complexity becomes coherence—and when structure allows diverse actors to collaborate.

As a Southern European who lived through a deep economic crisis in her adolescence, I saw how culture is capital—and that we must treat history not as nostalgia, but as a strategic asset for the future. That’s why my models are inspired by thinkers like Hedy Lamarr, who fled a war-torn Europe and helped invent secure communications, and John Nash, who proved that equilibrium isn’t about conformity, but understanding that playing right is beneficial to everyone, including those coming tomorrow.

Looking forward

These beliefs guided my contribution to the latest Charlenagne Prize Academy Report.

🇪🇺 “The Home of Collaboration – How Europe Can Win the Global Race to Innovation” (link) Is available since May 2025 online and in print, it builds on a full year of research between 2023/2024 and practical work, hosted by CEPS.

At its core is the Consortium Model, enabled by what I define as the Collaboration Function—a theoretical framework inspired by Nash equilibrium and the prisoner's dilemma, showing how actors with different goals can still cooperate for shared benefit when structures are designed accordingly.

This paper concludes a series of three interconnected works:

📘 January 2024 (link) – From the Universe to the Metaverse: A message to global businesses on why Europe’s cultural richness, stability, and democratic values make it the best place to invest in innovation.

📘 April 2024 (link) – A Digital Renaissance in Europ: eA call to European policymakers to embrace technologies like XR and AI, not only as tools but as human-centric strategies for sustainability, resilience, and democratic renewal.

📘 July 2024 (link) – From the United States to Europe: A policy brief proposing real-world solutions for both the public and private sectors, based on best practices observed across the Atlantic.

The importance of collaboration

 This journey would not have been possible without extraordinary collaborators:

• CEPS (host institution)

• Federico Arangath (ETH Zürich)

• DWorld VR

• Prof. em. Werner Pascha (Universität Duisburg-Essen)

• Irakli Beridze (Head of Centre for AI & Robotics, UNICRI)

• Luca del Monte (Senior Executive, ESA)

• Prof. Elena Calandri (University of Padova)

• Dr. Yu Yuan (IEEE-ISTO MASA)

• Joan O'Hara (XR Association)

It was a true honor to see Roberta Metsola in Aachen this March and to follow Ursula Von der Leyen, whose leadership continues to inspire across generations.

How young women & men can thrive in Europe

As Hedy Lamarr once said: “It is easier for women to succeed in business, the arts, and politics in America than in Europe.” And yet, it is telling that even in the U.S., female tech innovators still receive little visibility—and a woman has yet to become president. A milestone that, when reached, should reflect genuine merit and leadership, not mere symbolism. On a side note, I also believe that women should not be diminished, or unbelieved, for being beautiful: femininity should shine like glitter and not exclude the possibility for a woman to be respected and seen as intellectually capable. (!)

🌱 My hope for Europe is simple: that it becomes a place where different perspectives can not only coexist, but create. Where young voices, especially young women, are not just present—but heard.

🪻 Finally, for this collaborative vision to become reality, Europe must reduce bureaucracy and make innovation implementation easier: these are pre-requisites of my proposed “collaboration function” to work smoothly in real life as the public dimension of the function is based primarily on political consensus.  We should take note of reforms in the U.S. that have simplified entrepreneurship and innovation. Because in a democracy, fast, essential, and effective institutions are the foundation for any meaningful collaboration.

A year of change for Europe and the blog, a year of glitter and gold 

This is the third year of blog and change, or the connection between past and future, has always been an ongoing theme:

I. The first year change came as transition, it was linear

II. The second year change came as metamorphosis, it was transformative

III. The third year change came as burning and re-building a house (or in this case the blog which to me stood like a ruin I wanted to tear down from the ground), it was revolutionary

Living in the present is about mixing what came bofore us and what’s coming next and sometimes life will be linear, sometimes it will be natural like watching a seed morph into a flower, sometimes it will be incredibly messy like the most rapid historical changes. All of these ways of life are needed and complement one another. 

PS: Thank you to everyone who supported me this year, personally and professionally, especially to my academic/business mentors who helped shaping my ideas and testing/promoting them in real life. No idea, for how revolutionary it is, has ever come to fruition without multiple people and stakeholders believing in the same vision as the collaboration function suggests. From the US to Europe, from the “Golden age” to the “home of collaboration”: together, we move forward after a year of Nero, who built the Domus Aurea.

Love,

Elena