About CEELBAS

Objectives

Funding & Timescale

Programme

Previous Initiatives

Press & Publicity

Objectives of the Centre

The Centre for East European Language-Based Area Studies (CEELBAS) is a major collaboration between the universities of Bath, Birmingham, Cambridge, Kent, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield, Warwick, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and UCL. The Centre is based at UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

The main objective of the Centre is to realise the UK's strategic commitment to the study of Central and Eastern Europe and Russia (and neighbouring regions). CEELBAS is developing multi-disciplinary, language-based research capacity around key themes, generating a flow of highly-trained expertise, and actively engaging with user communities and international networks. It aims to set the research agenda for the study of the region and to inform policy making, nationally and internationally. The Centre has helped to give the UK a leading global presence in the study of regions of continued strategic importance. 

Funding and Timescale

CEELBAS was initially funded primarily by the AHRC, ESRC and HEFCE (£5.6 million), as part of the UK Funding Councils' LBAS Initiative 2006-2011. The Centre has since received development funding from the AHRC and British Academy for the period 2012-2015.

Programme of Activity, 2012-2015

Partnerships for Knowledge Exchange

CEELBAS hosts joint knowledge exchange events with a range of partners in business and finance, policy-making, the third sector and the media.

These events are designed to demonstrate the strategic importance and impact of area studies research - in both the humanities and social sciences - in addressing social, political, economic and strategic questions, and to create a base for sustainable and long-term collaboration between the academic and non-academic communities.

As part of its knowledge exchange porogramme, a searchable Database of Expertise has been set-up and is maintained by CEELBAS as a free resource for those wishing to locate an expert on Central and Eastern Europe and Russia (and neighbouring regions) for media enquiries, collaborative and/or consultative purposes.

Internship Schemes

A new internship scheme for postgraduate students and early-career scholars has been launched by CEELBAS, with a specific remit to establish internships for researchers who are undertaking advanced historical, cultural and/or language-based research. It gives researchers the opportunity to shape their work in relation to the strategic priorities of non-academic users, particularly where this addresses key areas of policy concern such as security, conflict, migration, energy, health and wellbeing, social mobility, civil society, and multiculturalism. View further details and examples of previous and forthcoming internship projects.

Research Network Workshops

Since 2007 CEELBAS network workshops have proved highly successful in taking research in new and interdisciplinary directions; in establishing national and international research clusters around key strategic themes; and in generating numerous scholarly outputs and successful grant applications. These events aim to stimulate the exchange of ideas and expertise between the academic and user communities, as well as between up-and-coming and established scholars, both in the UK and overseas, across and beyond the conventional boundaries of academic departments and disciplines. 

“I thought the event was wonderfully organized and terrifically interdisciplinary. I was surprised by how helpful and thought-provoking it was…The conference exceeded my expectations” (Dr. Kate Brown, UMBC, on the CEELBAS workshop ‘Spaces of Nationhood’: Landscape and Identity after Communism, September 2009)

“I wish there were more of such workshops. Very important for keeping informed, networking and exchange of ideas, and necessary critique. Thank you very much indeed” (Dr. Elena Rockhill, University of Alberta, Canada / Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, on the CEELBAS workshop Situating Culture: Cultures of the Margins, December 2009)

“It was one of the most lively and instructive academic events I’ve ever been to….its great strength was the result of an unusual combination of factors: it was relatively small and it was multi-disciplinary….I found myself learning a great deal from people doing stuff at some remove from my own area, and doing so in a setting where conversation flourished” (Prof. Philip Hanson, Chatham House, on the CEELBAS conference Russia in 2010: Sources of Stability and Change, June 2010)

Full details and reports of these events and their outcomes are provided in the Research section of this website.

International Research Exchanges

CEELBAS has launched an international research exchange scheme, tapping into the extensive international partnerships and collaborative projects in which scholars at its ten universities are involved, as well as less formal international contacts which have the potential to be developed further. These week-long exchanges are designed to build partnerships and facilitate scholarly mobility, and to promote the exchange of expertise and sharing of best practice amongst researchers, particularly with regard to knowledge exchange and user engagement.

Language Workshops and Repository

CEELBAS is developing modes of delivery and materials for advanced skills in the so-called ‘strategically important but vulnerable’ languages of its regions. A series of Language Workshops for teachers and researchers across the CEELBAS Network is held each year, in addition to collaboration in language development and training with the other LBAS Centres and with the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS).

CEELBAS also supports projects to create new research-focused language-learning resources, which are then added to the open-access digital CEELBAS Language Repository – a major national and international resource, designed specifically to meet the needs of postgraduate researchers, as well as to promote pedagogic reflection on language learning and course design.

CEELBAS encourages a strategic and innovative approach to language development, including through collaboration with researchers and digital humanities experts at CEELBAS universities, and through creating mechanisms for distance and e-learning.

Research Training and Support

Important research training initiatives supported by CEELBAS include Russian Archives Training Schemes and the annual Research Ethics Workshops series. A further contribution to research training has been the creation of an online guide to fieldwork and archival research in Eastern Europe (also available via the CEELBAS Language Repository). New training initiatives are being planned for 2012 and beyond.

In addition, grants are available to assist doctoral students in undertaking specialist research or language training that is not available in the UK. In this way, CEELBAS aims to facilitate the acquisition of specialist skills and to facilitate international collaboration and research networks among up-and-coming scholars.

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Previous Initiatives (2006-2011)

Master’s Programmes

A total of 37 CEELBAS Studentships were awarded for the M.Res. in East European Studies (UCL SSEES) and M.Phil. in Russian and East European Studies (Oxford). These innovative two-year multi- and interdisciplinary programmes provide generic and area methods training alongside language-for-research purposes and area-based specialist courses.

View list of CEELBAS Studentship holders and research topics

"It was certainly great for me, and UK university studies of other societies would be a good deal worse off without programmes like CEELBAS" (James Dawson, former CEELBAS M.Res, UCL, currently undertakingdoctoral study at UCL Department of Political Science)

“I am sure that I would not have got any of these jobs without my M. Phil., which, in turn, I would not have been able to afford without CEELBAS support. As such, I am very grateful for this excellent programme” (Andrew Nethercott, CEELBAS M.Phil, Oxford, 2006-2008, since employed by NATO and the Department for International Development).

Doctoral Programmes

A total of 33 Ph.D./D.Phil. studentships were awarded by CEELBAS for study at UCL SSEES, University of Oxford REES and University of Birmingham CREES.
This body of doctoral research has engaged comprehensively with the CEELBAS region, drawing upon a variety of pertinent, interdisciplinary research themes.

View list of CEELBAS Studentship holders and their research topics

Postdoctoral Research Fellowships

Seven postdoctoral research fellowships were appointed, based at UCL, University of Oxford and University of Birmingham, to conduct research on strategically prioritised research themes, with a view also to synergies across themes. Research and training events organised by the fellows in 2006-2011 included:

• a joint conference on the Society, Culture and Politics of Eastern Europe (December 2008)
• the Youth and Social Change Across Borders Conference (March 2009)
• the conference 'Legacies and Prospects' - Poland 1989: 20 Years On (June 2009)
  
• an international workshop ‘Beyond Nationalism? Cultural Processes in East-Central Europe, 20th-21st Centuries’ at the L’viv Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (February 2010)
• an international conference on Diasporas and Cosmopolitanism: From Theory to Practice (September 2010)

View an overview of all seven postdoctoral fellows or visit their research and events pages.

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Press & Publicity

Press and publicity for CEELBAS and its activities includes:

"Conference of Foreign Language Teachers, London" - report by Olga Kerziouk of the British Library on the LBAS language conference (December 2012) in Ukrains'ka Dumka (Ukrainian Thought), a fortnightly newspaper which is published in London.

"London University Workshop on Shale Gas and Renewable Energy" - report on the CEELBAS/UCL workshop on Shale Gas & Renewable Energy in Central and Eastern Europe (June 2012).

“Rokovedenie? Est’ takaya nauka!” [Rock-studies? There is such science!] -
Text of programme by Aleksandr Kan of the BBC Russian Service on the value of rock studies and their role in understanding rock music: inspired by the CEELBAS-funded workshop RottenBeat: academic and musical dialogue with new Russian punk and featuring contributions from workshop participants.

"RFE's Teachable Moment" - article on the Radio Free Europe website (22 July 2011) about the use of RFE video clips in a CEELBAS-funded language project at UCL SSEES. See also the week-long diary by project leader Jelena Calic published on the Radio Free Europe Serbian / Croatian site.

“Beyond Nationalism? Cultural Processes in East-Central Europe, 20th-21st Centuries” – March 2010 Conference Report in Krytyka (Ukrainian)

Coverage of CEELBAS Expertise in Russian-Language Press – January 2010 onwards (Russian)

“Interdisciplinarity without frontiers” – letter to THES August 2009 (also available at www.timeshighereducation.co.uk)

500,000 Poles vow to ride out the storm - 29 January 2009: Professor George Kolankiewicz, Managing Director of CEELBAS, discusses Polish migration to the UK in the Daily Telegraph

New venture reaches out to Eastern Europe – 27 April 2007: THES on the launch of CEELBAS

 Publicity Documents

CEELBAS Brochure	"Leading Research in an Inter-Connected World"

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