About the Director
Oliver Schmidtke joined CFGS in August 2012 as an Interim Director and then as Director in July 2013. He is a professor in the departments of Political Science and History at the University of Victoria where he also holds the Jean Monnet chair in European History and Politics. He recieved his Ph.D from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. He taught at the Humboldt University of Berlin before joining UVic in 2000, and has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Bonn University, the European University Institute and Hamburg University.
As a 'UVic European Studies scholar', he has been instrumental in building the European Studies Program as its former director (2005-2008) and taken a leading role in promoting European Studies in Canada. From 2004-2006 Oliver Schmidtke was the president of the European Community Studies Association in Canada, and for the past ten years has been the leader of the EUCAnet Project (European Studies Canada Network). During the academic year 2016-2017, Oliver Schmidtke served as the Associate Vice President of the University of Victoria. In 2016, he recieved the Faculty of Social Sciences Research Excellence Award.
Oliver Schmidtke's research interests are in the field of contemporary European politics and comparitive history, European integration, the political sociology of migration, integration and ethnic conflict, and the role of identities and collective memory in modern societies. Currently, he holds various research grants from the European Union's Jean Monnet Action and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada investigating issues of migration, right-wing populism, and the politics of memory.
Complementing his research expertise, Oliver Schmidtke is a scholar dedicated to public outreach and knowledge mobilization. He appears regularly on national and international media.