Schedule of Activities

This roundtable will focus mainly on publishing in international academic journals. It will address issues such as how to choose a journal, how to deal with peer reviews, how to reckon with long delays. It will encompass both scholars who have published numerous peer-reviewed articles as well as those who have served as journal editors.

Prof. Eiki Berg, University of Tartu: Professor of International Relations at the Skytte Institute of Political Studies. He has published nearly 30 international journal articles, including in Journal of International Relations and Development, International Studies Perspectives, Geopolitics, Nations and Nationalism, Cooperation and Conflict and Europe-Asia Studies. He will address differences in area studies journals vs disciplinary journals as well differences across sub-fields.
Prof. Christian Welzel, Leuphana University Lüneburg: Over the last 20 years Christian Welzel has published over 60 journal articles in a wide range of journals and in both English and German. He will focus on what it takes to get into the very top journals as well as cross-cultural differences in how publishing works.
Carlos Closa Montero, Research Area Director at the Global Governance Program, European University Institute, Professor Montero is co-editor of the European Political Science Review. He will speak on how a journal editor screens manuscripts, recruits reviewers and communicates with authors.

The aim of this roundtable will be to provide advice on putting together research proposals, both for national and international funders. Where applicable, speakers will be asked to discuss different types of proposals: dissertation proposals, post-doc applications, project funding applications.

Dr. Katrin Uba, Uppsala University: Associate Professor in Political Science. Her research focuses on protest mobilisation, social movement outcomes and the labour movement in Sweden and beyond. Her research has been funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the EU’s FP7 programme, the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Energy Agency.
Dr. Kristjan Vassil, University of Tartu: Senior Researcher at the Skytte Institute of Political Studies and Vice-Dean for Research and Development. A graduate of the European University Institute in 2012, he went on to obtain a post-doctoral position back in his native Estonia, where he has since applied successfully for five research grants, including most recently a one million euro grant to create a Center for IT Impact Studies.
Hector C. Pagan, University of Tartu: Lecturer at the Skytte Institute of Political Studies. For more than 20 years, Hector Pagan has written funding proposals in the US and Estonia. He has raised over €9 million, writing EU funding proposals in consultation with researchers and practitioners in a wide range of fields.

This roundtable will feature a profile of regional politics by organizing a discussion of relations between Russia and the West from a Baltic point of view. How has the conflict in Ukraine played out in this region? How have these developments impacted on views toward the European Union and NATO? How do Baltic Russians feel about the current state of affairs? What is the place of the Baltic states in Russian-European relations: a precarious borderland, a security bulwark or an intermediary player?

Dr. Piret Ehin, University of Tartu: Director of the Center for EU-Russia Studies and Senior Researcher at the University of Tartu. She has written on Baltic-Russian relations both in academic publications and policy reports for EU institutions.
Prof. Viacheslav Morozov, University of Tartu: Professor of EU-Russia Studies at the Skytte Institute of Political Studies. Before coming to Tartu in 2010, he was associate professor at St. Petersburg State University. Most recently he published the book Russia's Postcolonial Identity: A Subaltern Empire in a Eurocentric World (Palgrave Macmillan).
Brian Whitmore, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Senior Editor and Russia analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He is the author of The Power Vertical Blog and The Power Vertical Podcast, both of which focus on Russian affairs. Prior to joining RFE/RL in 2007, Brian worked for eight years for the Boston Globe, first in the Globe's Moscow bureau and later as Central and Eastern European correspondent based in Prague. Before this he was a political correspondent and columnist for The Moscow Times and its sister publication The St. Petersburg Times.