The Academy provides Fellows with access to the library and all available online resources. Also, Fellows have an opportunity to present their research and to deliver a lecture to students and the public once they publish their research work with the Academy.
FundingThe Fellowship is unpaid. Travel and living costs (if any) to visit the OSCE Academy for public presentations must be covered by the fellows.
The Associate Research Fellowship allows/expects to:
- make a presentation on her/his research to an interested audience, organized by the Academy;
- make a contribution to one of the following publishing outlets of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek:
- OSCE Academy Research Paper series;
Eligibility
- Preferably PhD Candidates, Post-Doctoral researchers, and/or researchers with a proven publication record in the field of social sciences;
To apply please send to arf@osce-academy.net:
- Cover Letter specifying the duration of stay;
- Curriculum Vitae;
- A short project proposal and a plan for the implementation of the research project
- A short paragraph describing what kind of support is requested from the OSCE Academy
Tommaso Aguzzi, 2023
Research title: Understanding Informality in Kazakhstan: A Study of Informal Entrepreneurial Attitudes, Behaviours and Practices
Tommaso Aguzzi is a Ph.D. Candidate within the Innovative Training Network MARKETS programme at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), Estonia. He holds a double Master’s degree in Global Studies from the University of Vienna and Roskilde University, as well as Bachelor’s degree in International Development and Cooperation from the University of Bologna. His research interests focus on the practices of informal entrepreneurs operating in the Central Asian region. In particular, he is interested in understanding My interdisciplinary research focuses on informal entrepreneurship and seeks to understand how social norms, morals, and business ethics are constructed by micro-entrepreneurs and the self-employed, and whether and how they deviate from the codified laws and regulation set by formal institutions.
Giulio Benedetti, 2023
Research title: The Role of Labor Intermediaries in the Migration Corridor from Central Asia to the EU
Giulio Benedetti is a PhD candidate at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and a Marie Curie early-stage Researcher in the Horizon 2020-funded International Training Network “Markets”. His research focuses on informality and migration in the post-Soviet space. Currently, he focuses on informality and the role of intermediaries of migration.
Eugenia Pesci, 2023
Research title: Activating the Unemployed? Employment Support Policies in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Eugenia Pesci is a doctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. She is a Marie Curie early-stage Researcher in the Horizon 2020-funded International Training Network “Markets”. Her research focuses on the development of labour market and employment policies in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. She is interested in analysing how global active labour market policies are translated and adapted in the context of highly informalised labour markets, by investigating how the notion of unemployment is being constructed through the activation framework in social policy. She is particularly interested in the perspective of the local bureaucracies and in understanding how they translate the policies into practices at the street-level. Methodologically, her study relies on in-depth interviews with a wide range of local and international stakeholders, participant observation, and analysis of official legislation, policies, programs, and reports. She holds a Master in East European Studies from the University of Bologna, Italy.
Anna Jordanova, 2022
Research title: The behavior of the Central Asian Elites on the International Level: the Unique Factors and Local Conditions Determining Their Policies and Politics.
Anna Jordanova is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Institute of International Studies at Charles University in Prague. Her doctoral research focuses on regional and international cooperation across Central Asia and its extended neighborhood. Currently, she focuses on new trajectories of the respective Central Asian state foreign politics, including its political and economic consequences. The fellowship at the OSCE Academy is coordinated and co-funded by the Bourse&Bazaar foundation as a part of a larger research of current cooperation trends of Central Asian states with partners beyond the traditional Russia-China scheme.
Jasmin Dall’Agnola, 2022
Research title: The Implications of the COVID-19 Crisis for Smart City Technologies in Central Asia
Dr Jasmin Dall’Agnola holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Oxford Brookes University and a Master in Political Science and Slavic Linguistics from the University of Zurich. Her research interest centers on the relationship between gender, governance and technology in post-Soviet Central Asia. Her postdoc project has been awarded a prestigious two-year, full-time Postdoc. Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, to explore the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on smart city technologies in Central Asia. Central Asian governments are known for using smart city innovations to assist in waste management and policing urban centers. However, there is little research to date assessing the extent to which the COVID-19 crisis is fuelling the spread of smart city technologies across Central Asian cities. Nor are there any studies into the wider Central Asian public’s attitudes toward them. Jasmin's postdoc project is designed to fill these voids. Methodologically, her study will evaluate survey data, focus group interviews, along with a visual exploration of smart city installations in the Central Asian cities of Almaty, Bishkek, Dushanbe and Tashkent.