The Global Europe Centre (GEC) is a new research centre focusing on Europe, its member states, and its place in a changing world.

The Impact of Language-Based Area Studies 

The Language-Based Area Studies (LBAS) initiative is meeting the major strategic need to build UK capacity to understand, inform and respond to developments in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, China and Japan, and the Arab World. This reception at the British Academy will showcase how the five LBAS Centres are promoting collaboration and knowledge exchange to expand expertise and achieve impact in the world beyond universities.

CEELBAS is pleased to report the launch of a new editorial partnership with the digital commons openDemocracy. Starting on March 27th, a series of articles are being published on the openDemocracy Russia pages debating various aspects of post-Soviet politics and culture.

The 6th CRCEES Postgraduate Research Methodology Summer School on Connected Communities: Active Democratic Citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe will take place in Kraków on Thursday 4 – Sunday 14 July 2013.

The following language training materials have recently been created through CEELBAS funding:

CEELBAS funding is currently available to support the following activities during the period June 2013 to January 2014. The deadline for all applications is Monday April 8th.

Date: March 22, 2013

Location: CAN-Mezzanine, 32-36 Loman Street, London SE1 0EE

The following report on the LBAS conference "Building the Language Base for Research" (14 December 2012) was published in the 5 January 2013 edition of Ukrains'ka Dumka (Ukrainian Thought), a fortnightly newspaper which is produced in London. An English translation is provided below. Click on the image for an enlarged pdf version of the original article (in Ukrainian).

CEELBAS and the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities are holding a one-day introductory training workshop at UCL on Monday 25th February on the use of Digital Humanities in Russian and East European Studies. 

School of Slavonic and East European Studies

University College London

Presentations and slides from the CEELBAS workshop on "Ethics of Online Research in Russian and East European Studies" (University of Manchester, 21 Nov 2012) are now available at this url: http://www.ceelbas.ac.uk/ceelbas-news/events/workshops/ethics_workshop2012

Cezar Macarie, who recently completed the M.Res in Russian and East European Studies at UCL SSEES, has written a new series of blogs as part of his research internship at the Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum in London. Following his earlier blog series for the Forum on Romanian Roma in the UK, Cezar's new series looks at the precarious lives of London's migrant night workers. Some of the findings of Cezar's research for this project were presented at the University of Leeds conference on "Vulnerable Workers, Forced Labour, Migration and Ethical Trading" on 14th December 2012: view the presentation.

CEELBAS invites postgraduate students from CEELBAS network* universities to apply for a two-day Intensive Ukrainian Language Workshop, to be held at the University of Cambridge, Friday 15-Saturday 16 March 2013. The workshop will offer intensive language instruction in two principal areas: cross-disciplinary reading skills for working with Ukrainian sources (including literature and archives), and a focus on oral communication (including conducting interviews).

CEELBAS invites applications by post-graduate students at a CEELBAS network* university for a two-day Residential Training weekend, which will be held at Madingley Hall, Cambridge, on 22-23 March 2013. The training weekend will focus on introducing post-graduate students to the challenges of teaching Slavonic Languages at HE level.

On 27 November CEELBAS supported a special event convened by the UCL SSEES Economics and Business Seminar Series to highlight and diuscuss the key findings of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)’s 2012 Transition Report.

The University of Manchester is offering a range of awards to which candidates working on topics related to Russia and Eastern Europe are eligible to apply. The three main awards, which comprise a fee-bursary and a maintenance grant, are ESRC studentships in Language-Based Area Studies, AHRC studentships and the University-funded President’s Doctoral Scholar awards.

A new book edited by former CEELBAS Postdoctoral Research Fellow Ulrike Ziemer has been published by Routledge. 

The School of Languages and Cultures in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Sheffield, invites applications to the Leverhulme Trust - Early Career Fellowships scheme.

As part of a CEELBAS-supported research internship with the Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum in London, recent UCL SSEES M.Res. graduate Cezar Macarie has completed a series of posts for the Forum's blog on Romanian Roma in the UK. the blog series asks 'who are the people behind the stereotypes and what are their lives like in the UK?'.

Click on the image below to enalarge:

CEELBAS is inviting proposals from postgraduate students at CEELBAS universities wishing to participate in a panel discussion on the role of theoretical models in the study of literature and culture.

 Click on the image below to view an enlarged pdf version of the Call:

A piloit project for research students from CEELBAS universities

This free pilot distance-learning project aims to provide a competent speaking, reading and writing knowledge of Bulgarian. It is open to research masters and doctoral students from any of the CEELBAS partner universities:

As part of a new editorial partnership with the global affairs network openDemocracy, doctoral and early-career researchers at CEELBAS universities are invited to contribute articles to what will be a specially-created section on the openDemocracyRussia page of the oD website. The partnership offers up-and-coming scholars a fantastic opportunity to reach a large and influential non-academic audience (2 million+ unique readers each year).

 Click on the image to enlarge: