European Integration Studies in Poland. From familiarizing Europe to battles for the future of the country

European Integration Studies (EIS) became a popular teaching and research area in Poland in the 1990s overlapping with the process of the EU enlargement that the country applied for in 1994. The significant facilitating factor for developing curricula of EIS and research agendas were coming from pre-Enlargement funding opportunities by the EU such as the Tempus programme. European Integration Studies continued to be popular for the first years after Poland became a member of the EU. At the same time, the research in EIS in leading academic centres such as Warsaw or Jagiellonian Universities, became competitive in the European research area. In recent years – after 2015 when Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS - Law and Justice) populist and Eurosceptic party came to power – European Integration Studies became a battlefield of more pro-European views and research agendas clashing with those promoted by the government more nationalistic agendas and education focus. Against this background, the paper discusses – using normative power Europe, Europeanisation and politicisation approaches – the status of European Integration Studies in contemporary Poland and captures key debates around the EU and Europe in the country. Additionally, we focus on key aspects of the internationalisation of EIS, the role of international networks in developing the field, and factors determining that some research areas are more profound in Poland.