"During the 36 months of the project, the three universities carried out an extensive program of joint activities in the field of Russian and Eastern European Studies.
Three large multi-disciplinary academic conferences, each attended by about 200 scholars and experts, were jointly organized by the three institutions. The First Annual Tartu Conference ""Europe under Stress: The End of a Common Dream?"" took place on 12-14 June, 2016. The second conference “The Russian Revolution and Its Legacies: Taking Stock a Century Later” was held on June 4–6, 2017. The third annual conference “Reflecting on Nation-Statehood in Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia” took place on June 10-12, 2018.The UPTAKE team has been successful in ensuring the sustainability of the conference series beyond the lifetime of the project. The Fourth Annual Tartu Conference “Communities in Flux: Rethinking Sovereignty and Identity in an Era of Change” will be held on June 9-11, 2019.
Four training schools for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers were organized over the lifetime of the project, each involving between 20 and 25 participants, including young scholars from within and beyond the consortium. The first school, entitled “Post-communist transformations, models of development and implications for an emerging multi-order world” was held January 15-22, 2017 at the University of Kent (Canterbury). The second school, entitled “Scrutinizing the Story of Good and Bad Institutions: Post-Communism and Beyond” was held August 20-27, 2017 at the University of Tartu. The third school “Dividing Lines in Wider Europe: Political and security challenges three decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain” was held January 9-13, 2018, at the Brussels School of International Studies. The final school, entitled “Straight Talk about Russia: Internal Developments, External Conflicts and Outside Perceptions” was held from August 26 to September 1, 2018, at the University of Uppsala. The schools made a major contribution to the integration of young scholars in the work of the consortium, strengthened networking between PhD students and postdocs from the three institutions, and gave rise to new joint initiatives led by young scholars such as joint publications, conference panels, and the organization of a research workshop.
Nine research workshops were held in order to stimulate research productivity, promote international networking, and facilitate the preparation of applications for research funding on selected themes. With between 10 and 50 participants each, the workshops have focused on diverse topics, ranging from Russophone minorities around the world to the fate of the liberal world order, from ethnopolitics in CEE to patters of autocratization and to the concept of resilience.
The project has made a major contribution to international networking by supporting mobility of both senior and junior scholars at the three consortium institutions. Over the lifetime of the project, more than 150 international trips have been funded. These have included intra-consortium mobility, as well as travel to major international conferences in the field. Twenty three UPTAKE guest lectures have been held. The activities described above have been accompanied by active communication and dissemination efforts in order to maximize impact."
