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.