Professor Korosteleva and Dr Hansbury represented the WUB-hub on 28 August at the Foreign Office London when briefing a new Head of Mission appointed for Belarus. During the roundtable inter alia the issues of democratic political structures, foreign policy, and civil society developments were discussed.

Professor Korosteleva was invited by the EUISS to speak onshtag resilience and the need to rethink EU support for Moldova, Georgia and Armenia, at the European Council Building, Brussels. The meeting was attended by the officials from the European Commission, External Action Service, and country representatives working towards developing a new strategy, based on resilience. This was research with impact, in the making.

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.

IGSD, in School for Cross faculty Studies, is proud to announce the appointment of Dr Feng MaoLink opens in a new window as the new Director of Research and Dr Vangelis PitidisLink opens in a new window as the new Director Impact. Please join us to congratulate them both on this prestigious achievement and look forward to working on Warwick's REF 2028.Link opens in a new window

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.