Materials
The Pirate Academy is an educational approach to European policy and a three-month experiential-education course run by MEP Markéta Gregorová.
No new semesters are open at the moment. Instead, during autumn 2026 we are releasing the Pirate Academy Handbook: a series of materials explaining the theory and logic behind the course, plus five ready-to-run scenarios, each with a facilitator guide and handouts for every participant. Feel free to adapt them to your needs.
The Pirate Academy Handbook series is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (CC BY-SA 4.0): you may copy, adapt and build upon the materials, as long as you credit the authors and share derivative works under the same licence. One practical note: scenario secrecy (see Volume 1, Chapter 2) is a pedagogical practice, not a legal restriction – the licence permits sharing the facilitator guides, but publishing them where your future participants can find them will break your own scenarios.
Volume 1 – The Handbook
Start here. Volume 1 explains the Pirate Academy method: what the course is and how it is structured, how to recruit and prepare participants, how to facilitate a scenario session and run the debrief, and what to watch out for along the way. It is the foundation the scenario volumes build on.
Volume 2 – The JCPOA scenario
A complete negotiation scenario set in 2015: the European Union, its member states and Iran negotiating the nuclear deal (JCPOA), with the United States in the background. One session of roughly two hours: 90 minutes of play plus briefing and debrief.
For the facilitator
For participants
- General factsheet – background and rules for everyone (PDF)
- All participant materials in one package – factsheet + 21 role sheets (ZIP, 2 MB)
Role sheets by delegation – send each participant only their own sheet. Open a delegation to download the whole set or individual sheets.
Volume 3 – The Gas Crisis 2009 scenario
January 2009: a price dispute between Gazprom and Naftogaz stops all Russian gas transit through Ukraine, and south-eastern Europe is left without heating in mid-winter. Participants play eleven delegations at an emergency conference chaired by the Czech EU Presidency and try to negotiate a protocol that gets the gas flowing again – or fail, as the real one nearly did. A step up from Volume 2: a larger cast (12–24 participants), multi-member delegations with partly conflicting confidential objectives, qualified-majority voting and timed news injects. One session of about two hours: two 45-minute rounds plus welcome and debrief. Designed for online play; the facilitator guide includes an in-person variant.
For the facilitator
For participants
- General factsheet – background and rules for everyone (PDF)
- All participant materials in one package – factsheet + 24 role sheets (ZIP, 2 MB)
Role sheets by delegation – send each participant only their own sheet. Open a delegation to download the whole set or individual sheets.
More volumes are on the way. Further scenarios will be published on this page during autumn 2026. Questions, feedback or a report from your own run are very welcome at pirateacademyeu(at)proton.me.