Welcome from the new SGIR Chair

Dear Colleagues,

Let me please start by congratulating the new Steering Committee members and extending a warm welcome to them, as well as thanking continuing members for serving the SGIR so well, with dedication and energy.

After several years of involvement in the SGIR Steering Committee as member and then Chair of the European International Relations Summer School Board, and successively member and Chair of the Nominations Committee, I have been honoured and grateful to be entrusted by my fellow Steering Committee members with a special responsibility as of our latest Conference in The Hague, September 9-11 2004: i.e., along with this dedicated pan-European team, to strive to help the SGIR consolidate its academic visibility and the international consideration commanded by its intellectual achievements under the previous chairmanships of Professors AJR Groom and Olav F. Knudsen since 1989, and move forward creatively with the times.

The SGIR has always had a combination of its routine work and innovative projects. Last Spring, as Chair-elect and in agreement with the incumbent Chair Professor Knudsen, I had asked a team of four experienced Steering Committee members to review the SGIR’s previous projects and ongoing plans, so as to establish the background for the new Steering Committee’s priorities in steering the appropriate course. Their Interim Report has already evaluated the successful evolution of the SGIR, and will develop in the coming months into a Strategy Report to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit of scholars coming from different universities, as part of an ECPR network fostering horizontal ties. It will make recommendations, facilitate discussions in the new Steering Committee on its own dynamics and projects, and encourage teamwork on emerging initiatives to promote IR teaching and research in Europe.

The three major current activities of the SGIR (European Journal of International Relations, triennial Conferences, and the European International Relations Summer School) will be maintained and adjust to changing demands and opportunities. The Central and Eastern European dimension will be further enhanced as a long-term (yet not exclusive) purpose, and new potential deployments will be considered to improve acknowledgement of different intellectual traditions from Southern European institutions in particular.

I look forward to working with and for you during the three coming years in the ECPR Standing Group on International Relations, and wish you strength, enthusiasm, and success in your academic endeavours.

Brigitte Vassort-Rousset, Ph.D.
ECPR-SGIR Chair 2004-07

SGIR Steering Committee issues statement in support of EHU in Minsk

MA PROGRAMME ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SHUT DOWN BY BELARUS GOVERNMENT

The European Humanities University (EHU) in Minsk has been closed down by the Belarus Government on technical charges (non-payment of rent for buildings, etc) after an extended period of governmental harassment of the university. The harassment has been focused on trying to make its Rector, Professor Anatoly Mikhailov, step down.

Professor Robert Legvold of Columbia University calls the EHU "... the most effective non-public university in all of the non-Russian post-Soviet states". The university has a Center for European and Transatlantic Studies (CETAS) which offers a master’s degree in International Relations and is supervised by an international Advisory Board of IR specialists. There is no other education of its kind at this level in Belarus, Ukraine or Moldova.

The EHU was founded in 1991 by a variety of individuals and institutions in Belarus and outside, including the Belarus Orthodox Church and the Belarus government. The EHU has been supported by the Soros Foundation, the Macarthur Foundation, the European Union, the OSCE, the French government, the German government, the US State Department, among others.

The closing has brought reactions of protest from (inter alia) the European Union and the Council of Europe.

The Standing Group on International Relations of the ECPR, through its Steering Committee, had been considering the possibility of supporting the CETAS programme more directly. Given the recent events, the SGIR now associates itself with these protests against the attack on academic freedom by the Belarus Government and demands the re-opening of the EHU, to be effected at the earliest possible moment.

New Steering Committee 2004-2007
At its meeting in The Hague, the 2001-2004 Steering Committee of the SGIR decided by a unified secret ballot on 23 new and continuing members, from a slate of 27 nominees (14 new and 13 continuing). Further details are available on the Steering Committee page.

New members:

Professor Dario Battistella, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Bordeaux.
Dr Morten Bøås, Institute for Applied International Studies, Oslo.
Dr Thomas Diez, University of Birmingham.
Dr Laura Cristina Ferreira-Pereira, University of Minho.
Dr Stefano Guzzini, Danish Institute for International Studies.
Professor Dr Jan Rood, The Netherlands Institute of International Relations.
Dr Justyna Zajaç, Warsaw University.
Dr Bernhard Zangl, European University Institute, Florence.
Dr Heinz Gärtner, Austrian Institute of International Affairs, Vienna.

Continuing members:

Professor Eiki Berg, University of Tartu.
Dr Fabio Armao, University of Torino.
Professor Ulf Bjereld, Gothenburg University.
Dr Milica Delevic-Djilas, Alternative Educational Network, Belgrade.
Professor Japp deWilde, University of Twente and Free University of Amsterdam.
Dr Caterina Garcia, University of Pompeu Fabra.
Dr Knud-Erik Jørgensen, Aarhus University.
Professor Şule Kut, Istanbul Bilgi University.
Professor Marina Lebedeva, MGIMO University, Moscow.
Professor Zuzana Lehmannova, University of Economic, Prague.
Dr Christian Lequesne, CERI, Paris.
Professor Helena Rytövuori-Apunen, University of Tampere.
Professor Marjan Svetličič, University of Ljubljana
Professor Antje Wiener, Queen's University, Belfast

Back to the main page