The Opposing Europe Research Network (OERN) is a project designed to increase our understanding of the shape, sources and implications of party-based Euroscepticism across Europe. Three ideas underlie the project: (1) comparative work is needed to fully understand and map Euroscepticism and to understand the way the issue of 'Europe' plays in European party systems; (2) comparative work must extend across Europe and not be confined to existing EU member-states; (3) analysis of party-based Euroscepticism has important implications for our understanding of party systems and European integration. Bringing these ideas together has meant constructing a range of empirically-driven case studies, comparative and conceptual works on the issue of Europe in European party systems.

Founded in June 2000 the OERN now consists of over fifty active researchers. The OERN has sponsored workshops, presented a series of themed panels at various international Political Science conferences, launched its own series of Working Papers and will be holding a dedicated workshop at the European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions in March 2002 as well as a series of Economic and Social Research Council sponsored research seminars at various locations across the UK during 2001-2. Details can be found at the OERN home page http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/SEI/areas/OpposingEurope.html. The membership of the network can be contacted at oppeuro@sussex.ac.uk. The OERN is co-convened by Aleks Szczerbiak (a.a.szczerbiak@sussex.ac.uk) and Paul Taggart (pt35@georgetown.edu) and those wishing to join are invited to contact the convenors with a statement of their research interests.