IREX Hosts American Academic Alumni at AAASS Conference

As scholars arrived at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (held this year in Philadelphia, November 20-23) from all over the country, as well as other parts of the world, one could hear a variety of languages and discussions about research in nearly every discipline. In the exhibit hall, at the IREX booth, we were treated to wonderful stories of past fellowships, ideas for great new research, and memories of the challenges that faced academics prior to the development of IREX. Our discussions with our supporters and future IREX alumni set the stage perfectly for our 40th anniversary reception, which was held on Friday night.

On Friday evening, grateful supporters of IREX poured into the reception area. The scholars, who spanned several generations, were excited to emphasize their appreciation for everything that IREX was doing, as well as share their work over delicious food and drink. Several of the attendees seemed affixed to the projector screen where pictures from throughout the past forty years scrolled, inducing a feeling of nostalgia in many and sense of wonder in others.

On Saturday Mark Baskin and Paula Pickering, 2007-2008 IREX Policy Connect fellows, presented their research Into the Weeds to a room full of Balkanists anxious to hear about institutional development in Bosnia and Kosovo. Using quantitative data gathered during their fellowship, Mark and Paula argued that international actors have the ability to have a significant effect on institution building in both police reform and in local government and decentralization.

Later that afternoon, Darrell Kendall, IREX program associate, presented on a panel with representatives from each of the other Title VIII organizations. This presentation was a quantitative analysis of the trends of Title VIII funding over the last five years, revealing interesting trends in the balance between the funding of social sciences and humanities research proposals. Over the past five years, Title VIII funding, despite its policy-relevance component, has funded nearly equal amounts of grants from each of these categories. The panelists also discussed trends relating to several geographic issues, including the number of applications and grants in the former Soviet Union versus in Eastern Europe.

This year’s conference and the festivities that surrounded it reaffirmed the importance of American scholars programs at IREX for both the organization and those who have benefited from it over the past four decades. We at IREX look forward to this conference every year, as it gives us a chance to connect in person with the Slavic studies community.