Three of us have ventured north to spend some (net)work time together with Vera von Hüllen, who is Assistant Professor for International Relations at Leuphana. Julia Leininger and her DIE colleague Kai Striebinger are here for two weeks, while Annika Elena Poppe arrived last week for a two-month coordinator visit. Together we are discussing our current work projects and are preparing for two upcoming conferences: the “Dreiländertagung” in Heidelberg and the 10^th Pan-European Conference on International Relations in Izmir (EISA), where the EDP Network has organized a section on “Democracy promotion as interaction: rethinking the external-internal interplay in international relations” (conference program). Julia and Kai are also using this opportunity to further develop the research design for a joint project on values and their influence on democracy promotion effectiveness. Leuphana’s Center for the Study of Democracy (ZDEMO) with its focus on democracy-related research and its currently large portfolio of workshops and talks provides us with a great opportunity to get in touch with other scholars in the field and discuss new ideas.