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Summer School on Cross-Border Cooperation in the Black Sea Region, Batumi, Georgia

With the support of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, A Project of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and Robert Bosch Stiftung The Georgian Institute of Politics is announcing a call for applications from young academics, graduate or postgraduate students, and civil society activists to take part in a summer school on Cross-Border Cooperation in the Black Sea Region. The Summer School is designed to examine cross-border cooperation, its opportunities and challenges within this geographical area, learning also from European experience and values.

Programme Description:

The program aims to improve the quality of policy analyses on cross-border development issues and encourage academic discourse within the Black Sea Region, creating a cooperative network among young professionals from academia and civil society.

The Caucasus is considered one of the most important crisis-ridden regions in the world. With the collapse of the Soviet Union ethnic conflicts became a source of instability and in some cases led even to open violence and a loss of life. Instead of boosting cross regional cooperation, the region is becoming an area of apparent rivalry, with isolation policies, closed borders and zero-sum games. As a result new obstacles to cross border interaction and people to people contacts have been created. Europe can have no interest in a prolonged state of insecurity and uncertainty now so close to its borders. Despite this much progress has been made in post-Soviet countries but political institutions are still weak and the democratization process is slow. This school aims to build on “soft diplomacy” to enhance further understanding between young people in the region and will engage them not only as students in the program but also as professionals who can offer an objective and academic input.

Selection process:

Candidates for the summer school are expected to be young representatives of academia or civil society or similar, highly interested in acquiring a better understanding of concepts relevant to Black Sea regional development and cross-border cooperation. Applications are open to citizens of Georgia, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

The summer school covers the following topics:

● Politics and Good Governance in Black sea region

● Cross-border co-operation as model for “new governance” in Europe

● Cross border networking in EU and spin-off effects of overcoming borders

● Role of cross border and cross regional cooperation to mitigate conflicts

● The role of history in uniting and dividing, a common past and links with Europe

● Mass Media and human rights in conflict-ridden societies

Application and deadline:

Applications should include a paper proposal, CV and motivation letter. In the motivation letter (500 words) applicants should state their area of interest, how they would benefit from the summer school and how they envisage their contribution.

As the program is academically challenging, applicants are required to submit a proposal (not more than two pages) where they should briefly answer the following questions which will be followed up during the debates in the summer school:

● identify the biggest problem hindering cross border understanding in the region from your point of view

● how can the problem be tackled in the future?

The selected participants will be asked to finalize their assignments after attending the summer school – finished essays will appear in a publication. (Peer review by experts; proof-reading and editing to be carried out by the organizers).

Applications should be submitted to info@gip.ge The deadline for the application is 1 April, 2012. Successful candidates will be informed within two weeks of the closing date.

Practical information:

Summer school will take place in Batumi, Georgia, June 10-14, 2012. All travel expenses, meals and accommodation are fully covered by the organizers. All the participants for the summer school advised to find the cheapest way to travel to Georgia.

Participants will be obliged to obtain insurance for the whole period of the summer school and be responsible for visa arrangements in case it needed. The working language of the summer school is English. Applicants should have proven working knowledge in the language both written and oral.