Summer Schools

The Research Centre for East European Studies is regularly organizing summer schools.

 

Orilampi Summer Schools (since 2017)

Since 2017 the Research Centre is a partner of the FRRESH Network, which has been initiated by the Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki in cooperation with the European University at St. Petersburg.

The FRRESH network offers systematic multidisciplinary research training in a cross-national academic context. The network’s activities are designed to systematically increase doctoral students’ knowledge and expert skills and to reinforce the sense of a cross-national research community.

The FRRESH network and its partners organise annual summer schools in Orilampi, which bring together PhD students from Finland, St. Petersburg and Bremen. The summer school follows the idea of the North American Graduate School, where research training is seen as not only developing postgraduate students’ research skills but also widening PhD students’ knowledge and intellectual scope. Therefore, the topics of the summer schools vary from year to year.

 

Graduate Networks (2014-2016)

In 2016 the Research Centre was a partner of the Summer School "Intergroup conflict and its resolution - the case of Ukraine", which was organised by the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Science.

In December 2015 a winter school has been organized in the context of the ITN „Caspian“ funded by an MSCA grant of the European Union in the context of Horizon 2020 (Grant agreement no: 642709).

In March 2014 a spring school has been organized in the context of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network "Post-Soviet Tensions" under the 7th European Community Framework Programme (grant no: FP7-PEOPLE-2012-ITN-316825).
 

Changing Europe Summer Schools (2006-2013)

From 2006 to 2013 the Research Centre has been organizing the annual Changing Europe Summer Schools. Funding for the first five Summer Schools has been provided by the Volkswagen Foundation. From 2011 to 2013 the Summer Schools have been funded on an individual basis.

Each year the Summer School took place in a different European city and with a different (local) partner. Within the context of post-socialist changes and European integration each Summer School had a specific thematic focus.

* Export pipelines from the CIS region (Central Asian Foundation for the Development of Demcracy, Almaty 2013)

* Central Eastern Europe and the CIS between post-socialist path-dependence, Europeanization and globalization (National Research University – Higher School of Economics, Moscow 2012)

* The impact of the global economic crisis on Central and Eastern Europe. Economic, political and social aspects (National Research University – Higher School of Economics, Moscow 2011)

* Informal Networks, clientelism and corruption in politics, state administration, business and society. Case studies from Central and Eastern Europe (Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague 2010)

* Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe before and after the end of socialism (National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy", Kiev 2009)

* Central and Eastern Europe in a globalized world (University of Bremen 2008)

* Crises and conflicts in Eastern European states and societies. Stumbling blocks or stepping stones for democratisation? (German Historical Institute, Warsaw 2007)

* Justice as a societal and political matter. Equality, social and legal security as conditions for democracy and the market (Free University Berlin 2006)

The Changing Europe Summer Schools brought together about 20 to 30 young academics (i.e. mainly doctoral students and also post-docs) from the social sciences and humanities working on issues related to countries in Central and Eastern Europe to give them a chance to present and discuss their research projects and to get better integrated into the academic community.

Summer School participants were selected with the help of about 40 international referees, who had been integrated into a review panel. For each Changing Europe Summer School there were on average about 150 applications from all over the world.

Selected papers of each summer school have been published in an edited volume in the Changing Europe book series.