Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian announced a $2.5 commitment over the next two years to further strengthen centers for advanced study focusing on Western Eurasia and the South Caucasus. A single Western Eurasia center covers Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova. There are three South Caucasus centers in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
A $2 million grant to the Eurasia Foundation will continue to fund the Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC), a network of resource and training centers established in the capital cities of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The centers, which partner with local universities, offer scholars and practitioners stable opportunities for integrated research, training and collaboration in the region. Academics supported through the centers have helped to strengthen social science research and public policy analysis in the South Caucasus.
The grants announced today represent a significant renewal of support for the four advanced study centers originally launched by Carnegie Corporation in 2003, bringing the foundation’s total investment in these centers to $14 million.
“The intellectual and academic resources in these centers of excellence are helping to advance the transformation of the region’s higher education institutions into modern and more comprehensive research universities,” said Gregorian.
Though started in 2003, the center for Western Eurasia and the three South Caucasus centers grew from work initiated by Carnegie Corporation to prevent degradation of the academic sector in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Nine Centers for Advanced Study and Education (CASEs) were established in Russia. Over the past 10 years, the CASEs enabled several thousand Russian academics to engage in research, publication and international exchanges.
Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic foundation created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911. The foundation has a long history of supporting work focusing on Eurasia including the establishment in 1948 of the Russian Research Center at Harvard University to foster a comprehensive understanding and multidisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet Union.