Resources

IREX Publications

Annual Report 1997

The IREX Mission
Forging Education Links
Forging Partnership Links

IREX Mission

The International Research & Exchanges Board is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and international cooperation between the United States and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia and Northeast Asia.

Strategy

In collaboration with partners in the public, private and academic sectors, IREX sponsors educational exchanges, professional training and institutional development programs, and international seminars to achieve three mutually reinforcing goals:

to foster scholarship, strengthen university leadership, and improve policy analysis and development in the US;
to help partner countries successfully develop their intellectual, social, economic, and political communities by improving research capabilities, expanding access to information resources, bolstering professional associations and civic institutions, and increasing corporate and media skills;
to forge partnership links between universities, policymakers, professional and civic associations, and corporate and media groups in the US and abroad.

Impact

IREX's impact is far-reaching. Together with its predecessor organization, the Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants which began work in 1958, IREX has since its founding and assumption of these responsibilities in 1968 provided research grants and logistical support to over 6,400 US scholars studying in the former Soviet region. At the same time, IREX has helped over 26,000 foreign leaders from academic institutions, professional associations, government, business, and media meet and build working contacts with counterparts here in the United States. Many IREX alumni, both US and foreign, are now heads of state, ministers, senior diplomats, judges, legislators, policy analysts, journalists, and prominent figures in academia, the nonprofit sector, and the corporate world.

IREX receives funding and support from its member universities, major foundations, US government sponsors, leading corporations, and committed individuals in the private sector.

Forging Education Links

Field Research and Academic Exchanges

"By providing funds as well as local support to scholars, IREX not only enables scholars to do research in this world area, but also facilitates communication between the US and CIS scholarly communities."

- Peter Quimby, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison

ACCESS TO EXCELLENCE

IREX manages education information centers in key cities in the NIS that have helped over 60,000 potential exchange participants learn about education and training opportunities in the US.

IREX curriculum development programs are helping universities in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia revise their curricula and become centers of excellence where the next generation of academics and policymakers will be educated.

Since its inception, IREX has fostered US expertise in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States (NIS) by sponsoring field research by US scholars and graduate students in all disciplines relating to the region. IREX alumni have contributed greatly to US relations with the region as they have used their expertise in a wide variety of fields in academia, policy-making, and commerce.

Through IREX support, the benefit of field research has been extended to citizens from Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and now China and Mongolia. Scholars, student and professionals from a variety of disciplines are studying in the US or participating in professional training programs administered abroad. These foreign alumni have become influential in their own countries as important advocates of reform and closer international cooperation.

IREX offers a variety of educational research and exchange programs to help:

individual US scholars conduct field research in the region;
foreign scholars perform research in the US;
foreign students pursue graduate degrees in the US;
US and foreign experts develop university curricula and library and information science in the region; and
foreign professionals, entrepreneurs, government officials, policy makers, and civic leaders perform research and gain practical experience through internships in US institutions.

Participants in these programs benefit in many ways from IREX's institutional strengths, from its144-member consortium of US universities and colleges to its 18 field offices and Internet networks throughout the region.

Recognizing that regional relations are changing and regional boundaries are being redefined, IREX has begun expanding the reach of its programs beyond its traditional area of interest. For example, the countries in Northeast Asia are essential to the development of the Russian Far East and the new states in Central Asia. Therefore, IREX has extended field research programs to Mongolia and China, and new programs are being conceived to promote understanding and closer ties between the US and countries in the Caspian Sea Basin.

Activities & Funders:

Bulgarian Studies Seminar/United States Department of State
China Resident Scholars Program/Starr Foundation
Curriculum Consultant Exchange Program/United States Information Agency
Edmund S. Muskie and Freedom Support Act Graduate Fellowship Programs/ United States Information Agency
Education Information Centers/United States Information Agency
Freedom Support Act Fellowships in Contemporary Issues/United States Information Agency
Individual Advanced Research Opportunities/United States Department of State
Judaica Library and Archive Preservation Program/Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Mongolian Research Fellowships/Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.
Ron Brown Fellowship Program/United States Information Agency
Sakha Scholarship Program/Republic of Sakha, Russian Federation
Short-Term Travel Grants/United States Department of State
Social Science Curriculum Development Program for Selected Central European Universities/United States Information Agency
Special Development Initiatives/Carnegie Corporation of New York
USIA Regional Scholar Exchange Program with the New Independent States/United States Information Agency

Forging Partnership Links

Universities and Private Associations

PARTNERS IN BUSINESS EDUCATION

A partnership with the International Management Institute (IMI) in Kyiv, Ukraine has strengthened Ukraine's market economy by developing a stronger MBA program, executive training courses, and business consulting services. Two advanced computer programs from IMI's partner are now a part of their curriculum to allow students to interact in a simulated free-market environment. These newly acquired skills have built consulting capacity and new teaching techniques and have attracted scores of paying students. IMI's partner is Carnegie Mellon University

The collapse of communism and subsequent opening of once tightly closed societies has resulted in a new era of cooperation between governments, institutions and people. Within the societies of the New Independent States (NIS), institutions such as universities, nonprofit organizations and professional associations have begun to take leading roles in forming the new civil societies in the region.

Since the Institutional Partnership Program was launched in 1994, IREX has been fostering partnerships between US universities and private associations and counterparts in Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Building on its extensive network of exchange alumni throughout the US and Eurasia, IREX has established dozens of partnerships in fields as diverse as agriculture and public health, business development and the environment, infrastructure and democratic governance. Through professional development and training that strengthens institutional capacity, these partnerships have helped local organizations make concrete changes in their societies.

Recently, efforts have focused on helping the partner institutions become financially sustainable. Training seminars and exchanges are helping to bolster their strategic planning skills, Internet savvy, and ability to generate new income. Grants are being provided to purchase equipment and network communications, and widen their training outreach.

One result of this broad-based program has been more than 500 training products -curricula, course materials, videotapes, and CD-ROMs - that the Americans and their partners had generated to train over 10,000 people over the last three years. In 1997, IREX negotiated 125 dissemination agreements with libraries and other repositories across Ukraine and Russia. They already have free copies of the training materials most useful to their constituents.

To further strengthen the institutional base of NIS universities, IREX created pilot partnership projects with select universities in the region. The Kyrgyz-American School project in Bishkek and a new Russian University Social Science partnership have targeted curriculum development in fields as varied as political science, psychology, economics, American studies, business, and law.

Activities & Funders

Institutional Partnerships Program/United States Agency for International Development
Sustaining Partnerships into the next Century Project/ United States Agency for International Development
Partnerships for Civil Society and Economic Development/ United States Agency for International Development
The Kyrgyz American School/United States Information Agency
Russian University Social Science Partnership Program/United States Information Agency

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