During their visit, His Excellency Ravshan Usmanov, Deputy Head of MIssion Suhrob Vaseev, and 3rd Secretary, Jasur Valiev met with Professor ELena Korosteleva, IGSD Director, to discuss opportunities for further collaboration with the Universities of Uzbekistan, and the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in particular. This was a follow-up talk after Elena's visit to the country in 2023, and fruitful discussions with a range of Universities there, as well as the Agency for Innovation and Development, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan. The delegaton, during their visit, also toured the world-class facilities offered bin Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG); discussed teacher-training and intercultural training for students and professionals with the School of Education, Learning and Communication Sciences (SELCS); and explored opportunities in hospitality education with our partners, the University College Birmingham. For more information see here: https://warwick.ac.uk/global/news/prof_stuart_croft

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.

At EWIS conference in Amsterdam Dr Kudlenko presented a paper on resilience in Ukraine as part of Horizon 2020 SHAPEDEM project. Dr Kudlenko used the findings from her Resilience and War project on Ukraine, as well as secondary data analysis as part of the Shapedem.