Social Science Research Council

The GSC Program convened its second annual committee meeting in Budapest, Hungary, on May 19-22, 2002. The purpose of the meeting was two-fold: first, to select new fellows and grantees and second to meet with the 2001 Conflict Zone Grantees and receive their final reports. Based at the lovely Art’otel on the Buda bank of the Danube, the participating Committee members, 2001 Conflict Zone Grantees and GSC staff enjoyed views of the Parliament, Pest and other sites of the Central European metropolis. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungarian Culture Foundation and Central European University served as venues for some of the meeting sessions. Central European University was also the venue for a public information session about funding opportunities provided by the GSC Program and the SSRC in general.

The GSC Committee met to select the recipients of 2002 GSC Fellowships and Grants for Collaborative Research in Conflict Zones. From an initial pool of 193 applicants, a total of sixteen dissertation and professional Fellows were selected for the 2002 Global Security and Cooperation fellowships. Eight new teams were also selected to receive grants in support of collaborative research in conflict zones; the initial pool comprised 84 teams from 34 countries. The selected GSC fellows and grantees have studied a diverse range of international security issues. Examples include cooperation on issues of conflict, violence and transition between the successor states of former Yugoslavia to police development and democratic transition in Haiti and East Timor, as well as global environmental governance and community-based conservation in East Africa. They all reflect the continued interest of the GSC Program to broaden and internationalize the field of security studies.

Representatives from each of the eight teams that received the 2001 Grants for Collaborative Research in Conflict Zones gathered in Budapest to report to the Committee and staff on their 6-month research projects. The Grantees were also featured as panelists in a public presentation entitled “New Perspectives from Zones of Conflict” and attended by scholars and students from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and other local institutions. This first cohort of conflict zone grants recipients are certain to make a difference in their respective communities as they all show potential for fulfilling the primary goal of the grant program: building research and analytical capacity in conflict zones.