At the invitation of Judy Dempsey, Carnegie Europe, scholars, policy-makers and practitioners debate EU Democracy Promotion in this publication: "European democracy faces threats from both within and outside. To counter them, Europe needs leaders who are serious about upholding democratic values and addressing citizens' grievances'. Professor Korosteleva offered her take, as part of her work on SHAPEDEM-EU project. For more information please visit here.

The SHAPEDEM-EU project, bringing together 12 members of the consortium, across Europe and beyond, had its first mid-term review meeting with the European Commission and appointed by the Commission independent reviewers. The Steering Committee of the project, involving all team leads, presented its work on various Work Packages, and the project's cross-cutting issues including digital transformation, ethics and gender. The Commission representative was very pleased to see the project's progress, including all the extra activities that participants initiated themselves, going well beyond the project's call, to ensure knowledge co-production and its dissemination further afield.

Prof. Elena Korosteleva has been awarded Policy Support Impact (PSF) funding to connect her Oxford Belarus Observatory work with Warwick's Ukraine-Belarus hub (WUB-hub). The project will focus on the topical issues in the relations between the two peoples, in the context of the ongoing Russia's war against Ukraine. The project will run webinars, podcasts, policy briefs, workshops and a conference in the summer 2024, and prepare the ground for a large bid. Watch the space! Elena is grateful for the support of Rachael Kirwan and RIS in designing this project.

Horizon Europe SHAPEDEM_EU project, launched in October 2022, has had its first annual in-person meeting in Krakow on 9-11 October 2023. The meeting brought together 12 institutional members of the consortium, to share and discuss knowledge co-production by different Work-Packages (WPs), and to engage with the EU officials on the developments in the EU neighbourhoods. In particular, Warwick team leading WP2 on assessing democracy promotion in the eastern neighbourhood, engaged with WP1 - the conceptual framework of the project - and discussed the progress and challenges for WP2 in undertaking fieldwork in Eastern Europe and capturing perceptions and practices of democracy on ground, covering Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus - the countries affected by war, conflict, and internal/external oppression.