The module aims to theoretically and methodologically synthesize Eastern European area studies and European integration studies. Typically European studies have mainly concentrated on the development of Western Europe. Today the study of European integration also covers the Eastern enlargement process and countries of Central Eastern Europe, but nevertheless to a large extent, the area has been investigated from Western institutional perspectives. Our focus area, Eastern Europe, has historically been on the periphery of European integration studies. Moreover, since most the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe have now acceded to the EU, they have become something of a periphery in the field of Russian and Eastern European studies. With Finland neighbouring Russia, Russian studies will remain a major field in the country, and nowhere more than in the Aleksanteri Institute’s Russia Hub. The module will tap into this rich source to give knowledge of the EU to students interested in Russian and Eastern European Studies. It will also invigorate the field through providing it with expertise on European integration, a pressing need that the ongoing crisis in Ukraine only accentuates. The type of synthesis we provide can be of interest, particularly in the Eastern Partnership countries but also in Russia where European studies have to this day been identified with EU studies, and moreover are considered  “Western propaganda”, thus hindering fruitful correspondence, let alone cooperation.