The Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Program (BIP) partnership between the Universities of Lumière Lyon 2, Lodz
and Crete has successfully organized two BIP editions in Lyon, in 2023 and 2024, under the
pedagogical coordination of Monica Martinat, Professor of Modern History at Université Lumière
Lyon 2. The themes, “European Citizenships” (2023) and “Mobilities and Migrations through
Time” (2024), always pertinent to contemporary European societies, but with emphasis on a
distinct historical dimension, were chosen to promote interdisciplinary interaction
between teachers and students.
In 2025 the relay passes to the University of Crete! The third edition of the BIP partnership
is organized by the UoC Department of History and Archaeology in Rethymno in
February-April 2025, also welcoming a fourth member to the partnership, the University of
Sassari. The theme of the 2025 program, “The Commons, Past and Present”, adheres to the
interdisciplinary approach and to issues of particular relevance for contemporary societies, which
can only be understood in all their complexity if investigated over time.
In a general way, the commons can be defined as the natural (and, in contemporary times
increasingly also cultural) resources belonging and/or accessible to the members of a society, to
varying degrees independently of whether they are owned privately or publicly. The difficulty of a
comprehensive definition arises from shifting notions of the commons through time. Attention
to the emergence and change of commons in the long run unavoidably calls for historians to work
together and join their methodologies with scholars from the social sciences in a concerted
analysis of resilient collective action.

Aims:

• To provide the interdisciplinary tools for the understanding of the commons as the natural and cultural
  resources accessible to and managed by groups of people for individual and collective benefit.
• European policy concerns will figure prominently in the program, although the global dimension of
  the topic will always be present.
• An overview of scholarly debate will be combined with the presentation of case studies and a focused
  field trip.
• Choosing this specific topic for a BIP on Crete is of particular importance: An island in the Eastern
  Mediterranean, Crete is at the crux of climate change and finite natural resources, and consequently at
  the center of debates about a sustainable and resilient management of resources, the landscape and its
  heritage.

The online component of this Blended Intensive Program has been successfully concluded.

We are now happy to announce the in-presence week, which will be hosted by the UoC Department of History and Archaeology on 7-11 April 2025.

The 2025 BIP in Crete is coordinated by Eleni Sakellariou and Eleftheria Zei

Read the full program here