Associate Research Fellowship
The Academy provides Fellows with access to the library and all available online resources as well as with an opportunity to present their research and to deliver a lecture to students and the public.
FundingThe Fellowship is unpaid. Travel and living costs (if any) to visit the OSCE Academy for public presentations must be covered by the fellows.
The Associate Research Fellowship allows/expects to:
- make a presentation on her/his research to an interested audience, organized by the Academy;
- make a contribution to one of the following publishing outlets of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek:
- OSCE Academy Research Paper series;
Eligibility
- Preferably PhD Candidates and/or Post-Doctoral researchers in the field of social sciences;- Excellent knowledge of English;
-Clearly identified area of expertise / research interest in line with Academy’s research agenda.
To apply please send to arf@osce-academy.net:
- Cover Letter specifying the duration of stay;
- Curriculum Vitae;
- A short project proposal and a plan for the implementation of the research project
- A short paragraph describing what kind of support is requested from the OSCE Academy
Current Associate Research Fellows
Eugenia Pesci, 2022
Research title: Activating the unemployed? Employment support policies in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Eugenia Pesci is a doctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. She is a Marie Curie early-stage Researcher in the Horizon 2020-funded International Training Network “Markets”. Her research focuses on the development of labour market and employment policies in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. She is interested in analysing how global active labour market policies are translated and adapted in the context of highly informalised labour markets, by investigating how the notion of unemployment is being constructed through the activation framework in social policy. She is particularly interested in the perspective of the local bureaucracies and in understanding how they translate the policies into practices at the street-level. Methodologically, her study relies on in-depth interviews with a wide range of local and international stakeholders, participant observation, and analysis of official legislation, policies, programs, and reports. She holds a Master in East European Studies from the University of Bologna, Italy.
Anna Jordanova, 2022
Research title: The behavior of the Central Asian elites on the international level: the unique factors and local conditions determining their policies and politics.
Anna Jordanova is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Institute of International Studies at Charles University in Prague. Her doctoral research focuses on regional and international cooperation across Central Asia and its extended neighborhood.
Currently, she focuses on new trajectories of the respective Central Asian state foreign politics, especially following the renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine, including its political and economic consequences.
The fellowship at the OSCE Academy is coordinated and co-funded by the Bourse&Bazaar foundation as a part of a larger research of current cooperation trends of Central Asian states with partners beyond the traditional Russia-China scheme.
Intigam Mamedov, 2022
Research title: Maximizing benefits from transport and logistics potential of the Caspian region
Intigam Mamedov is an independent political analyst focusing on international relations, and a former Vice-Dean and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, Lomonosov Moscow State University. His Ph.D. dissertation was devoted to the energy policy of the Caspian littoral states. Current research interests include the environmental dimension of Caspian regional politics, transport and logistic projects in Eurasia and non-western concepts of world order.
James Michael Wilson, 2022
Research title: OSCE Peacekeeping: The unused instrument of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s peace toolbox [Working Title]
James holds numerous academic and professional qualifications, and has received First Class Bachelor of Arts (BA) Honours degree in Security Consultancy from Buckinghamshire New University, master’s degrees and postgraduate diplomas with distinction, including a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Security Sector Management from Cranfield University at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, as well as numerous awards for academic and research excellence. An experienced Chartered Manager (CMgr) and Humanitarian (CHum), James has worked with a variety of international organisations, including the OSCE, UN, NATO, EU, and the OPCW.
Within the OSCE, James was the Political Officer for the OSCE Mission in Kosovo from May 2014 to October 2016; he served as a Monitoring Officer from January 2018 to May 2022 with the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine; and for over 10 years to date, James undertakes election observation missions with ODIHR across the OSCE region.James has diverse deployed field experience, including political affairs and communications in Kosovo; Ebola response management in Sierra Leone; conflict monitoring, humanitarian affairs, and human security reporting in Ukraine; over 20 election operations with civil society, the EU, and OSCE ODIHR, including in Ukraine, Kosovo, Turkey, and North Macedonia; humanitarian safety and security management for civil society in the refugee crisis in Greece and the Mediterranean; communications and reporting for the UNDP in Viet Nam; and humanitarian public information and communications for the IOM in Romania.
Eva Seiwert/ 2022
Research title: “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and China’s vision of international relations in the 21st century”
Dr Eva Seiwert is a Research Associate at the Institute of Political Science at Friedrich- Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. She holds a PhD in International Relations from Freie Universität Berlin with a thesis on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and China’s strategy of shaping international norms, which she is currently revising for book publication. Eva completed an MSc in East Asian Relations from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Chinese Studies from the Universität Leipzig. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and has spent numerous study and research stays abroad, including at Shanghai Jiaotong University, Renmin University Beijing, Lanzhou University, and the United Nations Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) in Bruges.
Eva is Associate Editor at 9DASHLINE, an independent and non-partisan online platform that publishes expert op-eds and commentaries about politics across the Indo-Pacific. Her comments on international affairs have appeared on various platforms, including The Diplomat, Global Policy, South China Morning Post, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the Bertelsmann Foundation’s BTI Blog. Eva’s tweets on current affairs can be found at @evaseiwert.
John Irgengioro, 2022
Research title: Competing for Hearts and Minds in Today’s Multipolar World Order: a Comparative Analysis of the Soft Power of Russia, China, and the European Union in Central Asia and Mongolia.
John Irgengioro is a PhD fellow at the Ghent Institute for International and European studies at Ghent University, Belgium. His research investigates the dynamics of soft power attraction as projected by the major foreign actors of Russia, China, and the European Union among youths and young adults in Central Asia and Mongolia. Methodologically, his research utilizes document analyses, online surveys, focus groups, and elite interviews. He previously holds an MA degree in Political Science from Brock University, Canada.
Jasmin Dall’Agnola, 2022
Research title: The Implications of the COVID-19 Crisis for Smart City Technologies in Central Asia
Dr Jasmin Dall’Agnola holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Oxford Brookes University and a Master in Political Science and Slavic Linguistics from the University of Zurich. Her research interest centers on the relationship between gender, governance and technology in post-Soviet Central Asia. Her postdoc project has been awarded a prestigious two-year, full-time Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, to explore the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on smart city technologies in Central Asia. Central Asian governments are known for using smart city innovations to assist in waste management and policing urban centers. However, there is little research to date assessing the extent to which the COVID-19 crisis is fuelling the spread of smart city technologies across Central Asian cities. Nor are there any studies into the wider Central Asian public’s attitudes toward them. Jasmin's postdoc project is designed to fill these voids. Methodologically, her study will evaluate survey data, focus group interviews, along with a visual exploration of smart city installations in the Central Asian cities of Almaty, Bishkek, Dushanbe and Tashkent.
Katherine Crofts-Gibbons, 2021
Research title: Listening to the Streets? The Response of Post-Soviet Central Asian Governments to Street Protest
Katherine Crofts-Gibbons is a doctoral candidate at King’s College London’s Russian Institute, where her research investigates the response of post-Soviet Central Asian Governments to protest, and asks why nondemocratic governments sometimes offer concessions to protestors. Prior to joining the Russia Institute, she completed an MPhil in Russian and East European Studies and a BA hons in History and Politics at the University of Oxford, and worked as a research analyst in the private sector.
Barbara Meier, 2021
Research title: Everyday Geopolitics: Transnational Identifications and Aspirations of University Graduates in Bishkek and Osh
Barbara Meier is a PhD-candidate in Social Geography at the University of Jena (Germany). Holding a scholarship of the Federal State of Thuringia, she investigates quotidian contexts of geopolitics in post-Soviet space. In her doctoral research, Barbara examines the global orientation of university graduates in Bishkek and Osh, with a special focus on educational decisions and consumption of popular culture, combining participatory research approaches and ethnographical fieldwork. Fields of her interest are critical geopolitics, post-colonist, and feminist theoretical approaches, visual methodologies, political architecture, and their intersections. Besides, Barbara has working experience in international higher education exchange.
Rebecca Wagner, 2021
Research Topic: Elections in Times of Shrinking Civic Spaces
Rebecca Wagner is a doctoral researcher at the Peace Research Institute (PRIF) in Frankfurt where she conducts research on resilience, international democracy support, civil society and elections. Before joining PRIF, Rebecca gained more than seven years’ experience of international human rights and democracy support work, including participating in ODIHR /OSCE Election Observation Missions and serving as a civic observer. Rebecca Wagner is member of the research network External Democracy Promotion (EDP). She volunteers for an NGO that organizes election observation missions for young people in Europe. Rebecca graduated from Leiden University, the Netherlands, and the University of Konstanz, Germany. She did her Erasmus year in Istanbul/Turkey.
Nima Khorammi, 2021
Research Topic: Persian Hub, Central Asian Networks: Iran’s Evolving Regional Strategy in the Context of Its Relations with China and India; Growing Turkish Presence in Central Asia - Caucasus: What Role for NATO?
Nima Khorrami is a Research Associate at The Arctic Institute. His areas of interest and expertise lie at the intersection of geopolitics, infrastructure, and technology. Nima has experience working in PR, policy research and advocacy, and marketing in Europe and the Middle East, and frequently writes both analytical and opinion pieces for a number of publications. Over the course of his fellowship at the AiB, Nima will lead two separate research projects on Iran and Turkey. With regard to the former, his research seeks to unpack Iran’s importance in China and India's strategies towards Central Asia and how Tehran uses - could use - China’s BRI and India’s Connect Central Asia initiatives to advance its interests. In his other project, he will investigate the implications of Turkey’s growing influence in Central Asia-Caucasus for NATO’s regional posturing in the context of NATO’s recently released 2030 Vision dossier.
Nargiza Muratalieva, 2020
Research Topic: The Impact of Geopolitical Projects in Central Asia
Dr. Nargiza Muratalieva is an Associate Research Fellow at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek. Associate professor, she holds a PhD in political science, with a dissertation devoted to “Regional Policy of Russia and China in Central Asia and the SCO as a factor of interaction.” Author of the monograph “Russia and China in Central Asia”, she published over 50 articles. She currently works at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) as an editor of CABAR.asia analytical materials. Her broad research interest are – security, political processes in Central Asia, international organizations.
Barbara Roggeveen, 2020
Research Topic: Civilizational Discourses in Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy
Barbara Roggeveen is a PhD candidate in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research explores a prominent yet under-researched attempt by Russian foreign policy actors to redefine the spatial contours of Russia’s post-Soviet zone of influence - one that not only includes the post-Soviet states in Central Asia but increasingly extends eastward to China, India, and the Korean peninsula. Prior to her PhD research, Barbara graduated with distinction from the University of Oxford with an MPhil in Russian and East European Studies. She also completed a Bachelor of Laws at the Vrije University and a Bachelor in Slavic Languages and Cultures at the University of Amsterdam. Barbara has held various research positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, and the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include conservative ideologies in Russian politics, Russian foreign policy approaches towards the Eurasian region, and the discursive construction of post-Soviet identities.
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