INTAS/Enhancing Civilian Crisis Management Capacities in the former Soviet Union

This project is designed to operate at both a practical and a theoretical level. It concerns the accumulation and transfer of knowledge concerning the good practice of crisis and civilian emergency management in the geographical area of the Former Soviet Union (FSU).

The theoretical knowledge and practice of crisis management (CM) that has been accumulated by the INTAS countries, shall be adapted and molded to the circumstances of the FSU. It is anticipated that this shall bring about a better understanding and knowledge of good CM practice in the area of the FSU and the production of cutting edge scientific research that shall add to a better knowledge of this subject, which has been relatively neglected in this geographic area.

A facet of this project is the use and training of young analysts from the NIS countries involved, this will lead to a new generation of young analysts trained in this critical field and exposed to an international research environment that shall provide them with an invaluable contact net and exposure to new ideas and ways of thinking. Putting these young analysts in such an environment will also get them use to cooperating with one another in a region where tensions exist and threaten stability (such as the recent Tuzla Dam dispute involving Russia and Ukraine).

Another innovative aspect of the project shall be the inclusion of members of government agencies that are responsible for CM in the respective countries. The benefits of this shall be that these decision makers feel included and have a stake, they can enrich the research data with their personal knowledge and hard to attain information and they may be able to initiate positive and progressive changes in their respective agencies.

This is an INTAS funded project under the ”Transforming Societies – East and West” thematic call. The project is set to run from September 2005 until September 2007. The five project teams involved are:

Swedish Team, Professor Eric Stern, Crismart, Stockholm

Icelandic Team, Ásthildur Bernhardsdottir, Centre for Small State Studies, Reykjavik

Ukrainian Team - Viktor Lavrenyuk, Center for International Studies, Kiev

Russian Team - Professor Boris Porfiriev, Risk and Crisis Research Center, Moscow

Kaliningrad Team - Professor Eugene Krasnov, Kaliningrad State University, Kaliningrad