22 March 2019
March 18th, the third Annual Conference of MGIMO and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy opened at the University. The event was sponsored by the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund and the Carnegie Endowment.
The event took place in the framework of a program of academic cooperation, which has been operating between the two universities since 2017. The goal was to promote mutual understanding between the two diplomatic schools and to jointly search for ways to overcome the tensions between Moscow and Washington.
The conference was kicked off by the co-heads of the project, MGIMO’s Vice-Rector for Graduate and International Programs, Andrey Baykov and the Professor of the Fletcher School Daniel Drezner. The guests were also greeted by the Director of the Department for North America at the Russian Foreign Ministry Georgiy Borisenko, the Minister-Counselor of the US Embassy in Moscow Thomas Leary, and the Deputy Director of the Gorchakov Fund Roman Grishenin.
The plenary session of the conference explored the different ways of improving the Russian-American dialogue and was attended by Daniel Drezner and Christopher Miller from the Fletcher School, the Head of the Department of Applied International Analysis at MGIMO Tatiana Shakleina, Dartmouth Professor William Wohlforth and members of the faculty. Andrey Sushentsov, Director of MGIMO’s Institute of International Studies moderated the session.
During the following days, there were round tables on a myriad of topics including the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the development of the arctic and climate change. The presentations provoked lively discussions on bilateral relations. The fourth joint conference is scheduled to take place in Boston.
— See the MGIMO web-site for russian version
