23/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - LISBOAN conference. LISBOAN (Linking Integration Studies by Broadening the European Academic Network), a network of 67 institutions from all over Europe operating under the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme, held its first annual conference in Brussels last week. The network aims to strengthen cooperation between institutions of higher education and research and focuses particularly on researching and teaching the Treaty of Lisbon. Participants at the conference, mainly from universities and think tanks across the whole EU and beyond, observed that the transnational debate on the Lisbon Treaty had been hampered by external shocks which have affected each individual state in different ways. Participants discussed institutional developments in the post-Lisbon era and their impact. While a number of issues of democratic governance were raised, participants also saw the need to give more time to Lisbon Treaty implementation. (Cor/Gp)