22 March 2022
On March 22, the Institute for International Studies hosted the opening ceremony of the spring InteRussia fellowship program for foreign researchers organized by MGIMO University in cooperation with the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund and Rossotrudnichestvo.
Under the InteRussia project, experts in international relations work under the guidance of leading MGIMO scientists and conduct independent research with a possibility to publish their results in Russian and foreign scientific publications. Ten researchers from Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have been accepted into the spring program.
InteRussia Program Participants
- Abduaziz Alimdzhanov, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Lecturer of the Department of Foreign Philology, the National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek (Uzbekistan);
- Gulzina Daniyarova, Lecturer at the Faculty of Professional Foreign Languages, Department of international relations, Osh State University (Kyrgyzstan);
- Hrant Mikaelian, Researcher at the Caucasus Institute (Armenia);
- Mukhabbat Rosemamedova, a PhD student at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, the Eastern Mediterranean University (Cyprus) (Turkmenistan);
- Sukhrob Rustami (Tajikistan), Candidate of Political Sciences, Lecturer at the Department of Theory and History of International Relations at the Ural Federal University;
- Nino Skvortsova, a PhD student at the Department of Political Analysis and Administration, RUDN University (Georgia);
- Rigina Sysoeva, PhD, Lecturer at the Department of Social Sciences, Astana International University (Kazakhstan);
- Veronika Torosyan, Head of the Department of Turkish Studies, the Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (Armenia)
- Ilyas Shakirov, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the Department of the History of Uzbekistan, National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek (Uzbekistan);
- Ruben Elamiryan, Acting Head of the Department of World Politics and International Relations, the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University (Armenia).
Andrey Baykov, Vice-Rector for Science and Research, addressed the foreign experts with a welcoming speech. Andrey Baykov expressed hope that the InteRussia program participants would become part of the MGIMO network of researchers, which in turn would become a permanent mechanism for harmonizing positions and implementing scientific projects. The Vice-Rector also stressed the importance of establishing and strengthening institutional ties with the program participants’ academic organizations.
Maxim Suchkov, Director of the MGIMO Institute for International Studies, spoke about the theme of the spring program celebrating the 30th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Russia and post-Soviet countries. Maxim Suchkov expressed hope for fruitful cooperation in the interests of a deeper understanding of the post-Soviet space and wished the researchers to usefully spend the next six weeks at MGIMO.
The fellowship program for foreign researchers is organized by MGIMO together with the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund and Rossotrudnichestvo. Victoria Karslieva, Deputy Executive Director of the Gorchakov Fund, shared her plans for the development of the project, thanked the MGIMO management and the IIS team for their help in organizing InteRussia and wished the participants all the best. She hopes that the work will not end together with the program that instead will become the first step towards developing an expert community and horizontal communication. Lyana Dymova, a leading specialist at the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund and the Program Coordinator, also addressed the participants.
Ruslan Emirveliev, Deputy Head of the Department of International Development Assistance and Humanitarian Programs of Rossotrudnichestvo, stressed that the spring fellowship demonstrated MGIMO University's and the Gorchakov Fund's deep interest in this project, and he also signaled the agency's readiness to support the program.
Academic supervisors who had already consulted the interns also spoke at the meeting, among them there were Ekaterina Arapova, Director of the Institute’s Sanctions Policy Expertise Center; Ekaterina Koldunova, ASEAN Centre Director; Sergey Markedonov, the Leading Researcher of the Institute’s Euro-Atlantic Security Center and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Analytics; Yulia Nikitina, Senior Research Fellow at the Center of Euro-Asian Studies at the Institute for International Studies; and Nikolay Silaev, Director of the Institute’s Laboratory of International Trends Analysis. Ivan Safranchuk, Director of the Institute’s Center of Euro-Asian Studies, will also be among the academic advisors.
According to Nikolay Silaev, it is an important test for the academia to see whether it can be involved in such a high-level discussion. He encouraged the researchers to show the spirit of academic discussion, rigorous academic proof and academic non-partisanship during the InteRussia program.
Ekaterina Arapova highlighted the researchers' enthusiasm stressing that any topic gained new connotations, becoming more and more interesting and relevant in the current situation despite all the challenges and difficulties. In addition, it gives an opportunity to formulate research questions in a fundamentally different way, providing research with even more practical applications.
Sergey Markedonov emphasized the high academic level of the program participants. Based on the experience of the previous InteRussia program, he recommended them to learn both from their academic advisors and from each other, since the fellowship program participants were accomplished researchers and worthy representatives of their academic traditions.
Adlan Margoev, Research Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, spoke in more detail about the future academic cooperation between the researchers and their academic advisors, as well as about plans for the fellowship program. At the end of the meeting, he gave the guests a sightseeing tour of the MGIMO University.
The autumn program took place in November-December 2021 with five foreign researchers selected from among 47 applications. InteRussia fellowship programs are part of the "Priority 2030" Strategic Academic Leadership Program.
