The future of the European Union will increasingly be shaped by the perception of its history and an evolving European memory culture. Of specific importance are the narratives of the history-making decisions of national leaders in summits, and specifically from 1975 onwards in the European Council. Despite its political importance, the academic teaching and research on this key institution has remained an essential desideratum.Linking studies of European memory culture and the European Council the HOMER project is designed to analyse the European Council’s impact for the framing and shaping of those European master narratives that could provide historical and cultural orientation on European integration (beyond Europe's dominating witness-based memory)Combining approaches from political science and history HOMER will offer added value in six different steps: 1) stimulating new teaching methods by joint research-based seminars for students at the German Sport University Cologne, the University of Cologne and the University of Maastricht on a broadly disregarded academic topic. 2) fostering debating and research activities by establishing fora for transnational and intercultural dialogue of politicians, journalists and academics in order to identify and negotiate European master narratives 3) ensuring the overall promotion of EU studies by developing three online modules on the three summits for the "Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l'Europe" (www.evce.eu).4) increasing communication at the national level by offering a public lecture series with academics and eye-witnesses that will link European remembrance days to the project results 5) providing visibility by producing a regular newsletter and a webpage on the project's objectives, activities and output6) integrating the results of all activities in a final research paper