The Call for WEASA2026 is Now Open!

WEASA2026: Democratic Resilience in the Contested Infosphere 

We are excited to announce the opening of recruitment for the Warsaw Euro-Atlantic Summer Academy (WEASA) 2026! It will take place in person at the College of Europe Natolin in Warsaw from July 12 to 19, 2026.  

WEASA is an annual summer school for mid-career professionals who are genuinely interested in geopolitics, democracy, security, and digital affairs.  

WEASA was founded in 2013 in partnership by: The College of Europe in Natolin, the Polish American Freedom Foundation and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.  

Across the Euro-Atlantic space and beyond, the dynamics of the digital infosphere are now reshaping geopolitics as profoundly as trade flows or military alliances, with the challenge of disinformation at that intersection. Once treated as a bounded policy problem, it has evolved into an institutionalized field of practice, addressed through overlapping frameworks of influence operations, propaganda, and cognitive warfare. 

WEASA 2026 will take this landscape as its starting point, examining disinformation as a geopolitical instrument, tracing how external actors exploit information, economic vulnerabilities, and conflict to obstruct democratic consolidation, and asking what genuine resilience looks like when fundamental freedoms must be protected at the same time. Participants will also work with practical instruments, from open‑source intelligence methods to cybersecurity tools, designed to strengthen both knowledge and democratic practice. 

This year’s theme is: “Democratic Resilience in the Contested Infosphere” 

This year’s WEASA will cover such topics as:  

• Disinformation and an introduction to OSINT  

• AI-Generated manipulation & crisis preparedness  

• Elections of today and the future: influencers, money flows and AI-slop 

• Personal digital security: practical tools for being safe online     

• Democracy and human rights in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus  

• Emerging multipolar world and global security risks in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus  

Our programme blends lectures, workshops, and panel discussions, offering both theoretical grounding and practical applications. Content design has been carefully adapted based on alumni feedback to better meet today’s challenges. 

Practical information:  

• Dates: 19-26 July 2026 

• Location: College of Europe, Natolin campus, Warsaw, Poland 

• Application Deadline: 03 May, 2026 

• Travel costs will be reimbursed up to 350 euros, and accommodation and meals during the academy are fully covered by WEASA organisers.  

Participants / Eligibility:  

We typically look for mid-career professionals (usually those with at least five years of professional experience), who work as policy analysts, experts, advisers, civil servants, journalists, private sector specialists and in NGOs and are interested in WEASA related topics.  

Participants must agree to the WEASA 2026 Rules of Procedure  before applying to WEASA.  

In order to register, you need to register first on the first page or by clicking here. 

Questions can be directed at: contact@weasa.org.