An international research project led by the School of Politics and International Relations (POLIR) at the University will be launched in Minsk, Belarus on 22-23 May 2018.
The project, GCRF COMPASS, aims to build global partnerships and help develop capacity in research, policy and public impacts at higher education institutions across Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
It is launched in tandem with the Minsk Dialogue Forum, also supported by the GCRF COMPASS project, with an expected 300 participants and VIPs.
GCRF COMPASS is part of a £1.5 billion initiative by the UK government to support cutting-edge research that address the challenges faced by developing countries across the world.
Professor Elena Korosteleva, Director (Professional Studies) of the Global Europe Centre in POLIR at Kent, and her team was awarded over £3 million to work with prominent universities in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Their work will enhance joint research and policy impact capacities, develop public platforms, and integrate them into a wider European and global scholarly communities.
COMPASS seeks to establish ‘regional hubs of excellence’ across the eastern region and Central Asia, to enable them to become internationally recognised. This will create ‘nodes of excellence’ for knowledge production and transfer across the region and beyond.
The project will explore new approaches to ‘governance’ with a focus on community, peoplehood, identity, and order – domestically and internationally – to make governance more effective and sustainable and seek to enhance relations between the UK and partner universities, and to develop cooperation through:
- Research integration to identify specialist research niche for partner institutions, organise thematic workshops and conferences, produce agreed academic outputs; deliver international training schools for Early Career Researchers, and launch a series of pilot projects as part of the wider UK/EU research integration strategy
- Policy impact to identify training needs for continuing professional development in partner institutions, organise study trips to the UK and EU (e.g. London Forum in January 2019), deliver Executive Summer Schools, and establish regular top-level regional policy forums for policy impact and better knowledge of the region – e.g. Minsk Dialogue; Gender and Education in Baku; Eurasian Identity in Dushanbe; the Silk Road Initiative in Tashkent; Parliamentary Cooperation across the region and the Caspian Energy Security in Baku
- Sustainable communities to explore the notions of ‘peoplehood’, ‘community resilience’ and a ‘sense of good life’ for local communities; identify core public needs for more effective governance; organise school fairs with study packs, citizen juries and televised debates to raise public awareness and improve governance performance.
With University of Kent support, the GCRF COMPASS research team has expanded to include two GCRF PhD funded places for the next three and a half years.