Institute for Economic Studies - Europe

04/06/2026

What makes a Summer University memorable?

The lectures.

The ideas.

The people.

But also the places where conversations continue long after the sessions end.

This July, Arts & Liberty will bring together students, scholars, professionals, entrepreneurs, and artists in some of the most beautiful settings of Aix-en-Provence.

📍 Sessions at the historic Law Faculty of Aix-Marseille University

🍷 Opening reception at Hôtel Aquabella

🌳 Evening gathering at the Pavillon Vendôme

✨ Reception at Les Sentiers de la Campane, a private Provençal estate overlooking the countryside

Together with live music, artistic performances, and four days of discussions on freedom, creativity, and human flourishing, these venues help create something that is much more than a conference.

They create an experience.

📅 July 23–25, 2026
📍 Aix-en-Provence, France

01/06/2026

For this edition, ”Arts and Liberty” we bring together two worlds that too often remain separate: academics - economists, legal scholars, philosophers, historians - and artists- musicians, writers, producers, painters, and visual creators.🎓🪉


Whatever its form, art is the language of emotion. Emotion is the key to renewing our free societies. That is exactly why our upcoming Summer University is dedicated to the vital relationship between Arts and Liberty. ✨️

​📅 July 23-25, 2026
📍 Aix-en-Provence
Sign up by using this link!🔗
https://ies-europe.org/event/summer-university-2026/

30/05/2026

Can art help us better understand freedom?

For decades, discussions about liberty have largely taken place in classrooms, lecture halls, and policy circles. Yet artists have always explored the same questions through a different language: stories, images, music, movement, and emotion.

The Arts & Liberty Summer University seeks to bring these worlds together.

Economists, philosophers, historians, legal scholars, musicians, photographers, writers, and visual artists will meet in Aix-en-Provence to explore how artistic creation and human freedom depend on one another, and how culture can help communicate ideas that shape society.

Because freedom is not only something we debate.

It is also something we create.

Register here: https://ies-europe.org/event/summer-university-2026/

29/05/2026

🎨 What does freedom mean to you?

Can it be captured in a photograph? Expressed through a film? Revealed through a story, a place, a face, or a moment?

For more than thirty years, the IES Summer University in Aix-en-Provence has brought together students, academics, entrepreneurs, and professionals from across Europe and beyond to discuss the ideas that shape free societies.

In 2026, we are opening that conversation to artists.

As part of the new Arts & Liberty initiative, we welcome contributions in any artistic medium. Whether your work takes the form of images, film, music, performance, design, writing, or another form of artistic expression, we are interested in how you explore the theme of liberty through your craft.

Selected works will be presented during the Summer University before an international audience of students, scholars, professionals, and artists. A limited number of contributors will receive scholarships covering accommodation, meals, and full participation in the event.

This is not about promoting a particular style or viewpoint. It is an invitation to reflect on one of humanity's most enduring questions:

What does freedom mean in your life, your community, or your art?

📍 Aix-en-Provence, France
📅 July 23–25, 2026

Submit your work via the link in comments:

29/05/2026

What happens when artists, scholars, students, and professionals spend three days together exploring one of humanity's oldest questions: what does it mean to live in freedom?

For over 30 years, the IES Summer University in Aix-en-Provence has brought together participants from across Europe, North Africa, the Caucasus, and the Middle East to discuss the intellectual foundations of a free society.

In 2026, we are opening a new chapter.

Arts & Liberty will explore how freedom shapes artistic creation—and how art can help communicate ideas that are too important to remain confined to academic debates. Through lectures, discussions, music, artistic contributions, and shared experiences in some of Aix-en-Provence's most beautiful venues, we will bring together people who believe ideas deserve both intellectual depth and cultural expression.

📍 Aix-en-Provence, France
📅 July 23–25, 2026

Across the world, liberal societies are under strain. Prosperity remains, but confidence in the values that made it possible is fading.

03/05/2026

Europe & Liberty Seminar at Camp Vinson!

Are you a student interested in exploring classical liberal ideas alongside a group of like-minded individuals? Join us this summer for a fantastic programme organised in partnership with Institute of Economic Affairs and Vinson Centre.

✅ Free tuition, accommodation & meals
✅ Interdisciplinary faculty
✅ Socratic format — real discussion, not passive lectures
✅ A small, carefully selected group
📍 University of Buckingham, UK
🔗 Apply via the link in comments.

27/04/2026

Le séminaire Europe & Liberté revient à Aix-en-Provence cet été — et nous cherchons 25 étudiants qui prennent les idées au sérieux.
Pendant quatre jours, un petit groupe soigneusement sélectionné explorera les fondements de la pensée libérale classique aux côtés d'intervenants venus de l'économie, de la philosophie, du droit et de l'histoire.

De vrais échanges. De vrais désaccords. Une vraie réflexion.

📍 Aix-en-Provence
📅 20–23 juillet 2026
🇫🇷 En français
✅ Hébergement, repas et frais pédagogiques — tout est pris en charge

Le lien pour candidater est en commentaire 👇

27/04/2026

Free. Fully funded. Intellectually serious.

The Europe & Liberty seminar returns to Aix-en-Provence this July — and we're looking for 25 students who take ideas seriously.
Over four days, a small group of carefully selected participants will dive into the foundations of classical liberal thought alongside an interdisciplinary faculty of economists, philosophers, and political scientists.

Real discussion. Real disagreement. Real thinking.

📍 Aix-en-Provence, France
📅 20–23 July 2026
🌍 In English
✅ Tuition, accommodation & meals — all covered
👉 Link in comments to apply.

21/04/2026

🏛️ Applications are open — Europe & Liberty Seminar

What makes a free society work — and why does it matter more than ever right now?
This summer, IES-Europe and the Vinson Centre at the University of Buckingham are hosting a fully-funded residential seminar for 25 students eager to engage seriously with that question.
✅ Free tuition, accommodation & meals
✅ Interdisciplinary faculty
✅ Socratic format — real discussion, not passive lectures
✅ A small, carefully selected group
📍 University of Buckingham, UK
🔗 Apply via the link in comments.

25/10/2025

Joel Mokyr is one of the recipients of the 2025 Nobel prize in economics. If you don't know much about his work and about the person this video is worth watching. enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5MdhK3iUXE

Works by another great economic historian, Deirdre McCloskey, also deserve your attention because they complement the former. As a start, you can check for instance her book, co-authored with Art Carden: "Leave me alone and I'll make you rich".

Joel Mokyr, the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of economics and history in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northw...