To learn more and register to attend, please visit www.ppiaprogram.org

“Admiral Stavridis has the rare combination of intellectual curiosity, social intelligence, humility, leadership skills and respect from others that have made him one of the great military and political leaders of his generation, and that will make him a spectacular Fletcher dean, and a key member of the university leadership team,” said Tufts Provost and Senior Vice President David Harris in announcing the appointment.

Stavridis said, “I am honored to be selected to be the 12th dean of The Fletcher School, where I was lucky to earn my Ph.D. some years ago. I will focus on multinational, interagency, private-public and strategic communication approaches to international affairs, as I have through my career in the Navy.”

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Graduate and professional students are encouraged to submit publishable manuscripts addressing policy implications of, and solutions to, current international issues.  Special consideration will be given to submissions focusing on the following regions: Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, however, submissions on all topics and concerning all regions are welcome.  For further submission guidelines, click here.  Submissions are due by May 1st.

Founded in 1991, Estudar works to identify young Brazilians who have the talent and the work ethic to change their country for the better. By facilitating access to high-level education, they have invested in more than 500 of the most prominent young professionals in Brazil over the last two decades.

Their scholarship program is the heart of the organization, complemented by extensive career development resources.  Originally focusing on business and economics, Fundação Estudar has broadened its scope to include additional areas such as Law, Public Policy, Education, International Relations and Engineering. Over the course of twenty years, Fundação Estudar has built a large community of young, talented students and professionals.  Keeping an eye to new global trends and further expansion, Fundação Estudar is looking forward to having partners who represent the excellence and innovation that they want to diffuse in Brazil.

Fundação Estudar will act as a channel through which APSIA can reach a new network of high-achieving Brazilian undergraduate and graduate students, as well as distinguished organizations in the Brazilian education sector.  APSIA will help connect Estudar with our member schools generally and specifically with professors and administrators who might be traveling to Brazil.  In addition, APSIA will share current research and activities of our member schools with Estudar and assist in identifying opportunities for collaboration.

This poses a big challenge for banks that need a reliable system to identify borrowers, said Dean Yang, an associate professor at the Ford School of Public Policy and the economics department at the University of Michigan. “If you can’t figure out who a person is, you can’t determine their past credit history,” said Yang, one of the study’s three researchers. “You can’t offer more and better loans to someone with a good credit history. You can’t withhold loans from someone with a history of defaulting.”

The study, published in the October 2012 edition of the American Economic Review, involved 3,000 farmers who applied for micro loans, with an average amount of $117, to grow paprika. Using a “randomized control trial” popular in medical studies, the researchers divided the farmers into two groups: those who were fingerprinted and those who were not. The study found that fingerprinting did not deter the farmers from taking out loans. Although fingerprinting is often associated with police work and criminal misdeeds in other countries, it does not have such a negative association in Malawi. “It’s very rare for people to be fingerprinted in Malawi,” Yang said. “Often it’s in the context of voting. They’re familiar with doing it on ballots, so it’s a positive association.”

The researchers used a high-tech method of fingerprinting—or “biometric identification”—involving a laptop, fingerprint scanner and fingerprint capture software. It was a simple, cost-effective approach easily affordable for microfinance institutions, Yang said. “For every dollar invested in fingerprinting technology and the staff costs associated with implementing it,” he said. “We generated an additional $2.34 in profit for the microfinance institution.” The study shows that 85 percent of the fingerprinted farmers considered to be high-risk borrowers repaid their loans in full. In the control group, only 44 percent of the high-risk borrowers paid back their loans. Researchers found that fingerprinting led the high-risk borrowers to take out smaller loans when they knew the lender could easily identify them. The farmers also devoted more land to paprika, the crop with which the loans were repaid. They were less likely to take the money for paprika and use it to grow other crops.

The other researchers were World Bank economist Xavier Gine and Jessica Goldberg, who was Yang’s doctoral student at U-M and is now an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maryland. “What we’ve learned in Malawi can most certainly be applied in a wide range of other places,” Yang said. “That’s one thing that excites us about this project.” Read the study

The Master’s in International Security is a one-year, interdisciplinary program intended to educate future professionals in the area of peace and war studies. Its aims are to provide students with a comprehensive set of analytic skills, robust training in research methods, and a thorough understanding of international conflicts in the 21^st century whilst simultaneously demonstrating how they are embedded within the broader disciplines of political studies and International Relations.

The postgraduate program in International Security combines theory and practice and provides students with both academic rigor and policy relevance. Over 45 modules in international studies are taught every year by leading academics and an international array of distinguished scholars. In addition, students have access to visiting academics, serving officials, government experts and practitioners who give regular public lectures and research seminars at IBEI.

The Master’s syllabus presents an innovative structure, totaling 60 ECTS credits. It is made up of a combination of core subjects and a wide range of electives that reflect the students’ individual interests. The core courses provide students with a sound background in theories of international security and research methods. Building on the knowledge acquired in the core courses, students then have the opportunity to choose from a wide range of electives to tailor their education according to their special interest and in preparation for their final research project. The program also offers the possibility to complement their academic education with an internship.

More detailed information about the Master’s in International Security is available here.

The first Bachelor in International Relations class is a thriving and truly international group of 35 students representing over 16 countries around the world: Argentina, Austria, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, UK, and the USA. Students admitted to the program have excellent academic records and valuable international experience. The program faculty is as international as the overall student body, with 19 professors coming from 8 different countries, such as the United States, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Canada, etc.

The Bachelor in International Relations – Class of 2016 – By the Numbers:

• 35 Students
• 17 Nationalities
• 54% International Students
• 60% Women
• 3 languages spoken on average

The Bachelor in International Relations is a rigorous and innovative degree taught fully in English, and aimed at satisfying the rising worldwide demand for highly-skilled, well-informed graduates, who are capable of meeting the professional challenges of a rapidly changing global environment.  Like the IE Master in International Relations, the bachelor program focuses on the intersections between the public and private sectors on a range of international politics and business issues. In addition to mandatory language training and hands-on practical learning, the program will also require students to gain significant international exposure through study abroad programs and internship opportunities.

The new four-year degree is designed to provide undergraduate students with a thorough knowledge of international affairs, combined with solid foundations of business and management, in order to help them bring breadth and depth of understanding to the workplace. This broad multidisciplinary background is intended to produce graduates with an integrated global vision of fields like political science, foreign policy, economics, business, management, international law, international security, history, philosophy, and language. The program aims to produce global leaders with a profound understanding of the complexity of world affairs, who are capable of applying critical thinking and effective leadership skills to a wide range of issues in both the public and private sectors alike. It employs a unique practice-based approach and seminar-type discussions in the IR Lab. Students will learn to analyze interconnections between peoples, societies, governments, corporations, and multilateral organizations beyond the classroom, while being trained in conflict resolution, crisis simulation, strategic thinking, policy-making, public speaking, and news writing.

IE University is a private, international university that branched out of IE Business School, recognized as one of the top ten business schools worldwide by international publications like the Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, or Forbes. IE University houses all of IE’s undergraduate programs, offered in the areas of Business Administration, Communications, Psychology, Law, and Architecture. It is a contemporary, international center of education, where business management, technology, and humanities form a core part of our programs. IE University is also committed to preparing the next generation of global leaders who can meet the challenges and seek the opportunities of the 21st century, by fostering among them an entrepreneurial spirit, an international focus, and a humanistic mindset. IE University students come from diverse backgrounds (over 60 nationalities on campus), are well-rounded, multilingual, have lived abroad several years, and have been exposed to a variety of cultures.

IE University’s main campus is in the city of Segovia, housed in a historic building, the Convent of Santa Cruz la Real, declared a national heritage site in 1931. This privileged location comprises lecture halls, laboratories and conference rooms, where modernity and the latest technologies have been integrated into historical backdrop from the 15th Century. The Madrid campus, strategically located in the center of the city, is the alternative campus for some undergraduate programs.

IE University extends its warmest welcome to the first class of the new Bachelor in International Relations. Welcome to IE!

Beginning in Rio de Janeiro, they met with the Chancellor of  UERJ (State University of Rio de Janeiro)  followed by a visit to the Institute of International Relations at the  Pontifical Catholic University of Rio (PUC-Rio) and a meeting with the Institute’s Director Dr. Joao Nogueira and his colleagues.  That evening APSIA representatives met with over a hundred prospective students at our Admissions Forum in Copacabana.  It was a wonderful opportunity to engage with students and professionals, and  to answer questions about graduate study and careers in international affairs.  Also during their stay, they partnered with the Rio EducationUSA office to host a panel discussion at IBEU–Institute Brasil-Ustados Unidos.  They concluded their time in Rio with a well attended and enjoyable reception for local APSIA alumni and colleagues.

Next, the group traveled to Sao Paulo to host another very well attended Admissions Forum.  This forum featured an alumni panel discussion on the value of an international affairs education and career paths.  Panelists included representatives from the U.S. Foreign Service, GE, ThomsonReuters, FAAP and Patri.  APSIA also partnered with EducationUSA in Sao Paulo for an information session to prospective students.  Additionally, Fundacao Estudar hosted the group at their office for a very informative and productive exchange about the two groups’ activities and goals.  The program concluded with a visit to the university Fundacao Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP) and a meeting with the Director of the Department of Economics and International Relations, Prof. Rubens Ricupero, and Treasury Director of FAAP, Americo Fialdini.

Research Professor Janne Nolan received a $300,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for a project that focuses on building bipartisan consensus on nuclear security. The award supports the project’s programming efforts in 2012-13, bolstering funding for nuclear-focused events that convene scholars and policymakers to discuss key nuclear security issues. The grant also provides the means to continue building a network of experts in both the academic and policy community to share important ideas on threats to nuclear security, most significantly in the case of Iran.

“Carnegie Corporation’s continued support for this project is particularly exciting given the Elliott School’s participation, specifically its contributions to our ongoing efforts to forge a bipartisan nuclear security consensus through informed programming and the mobilization of influential scholars and policymakers,” said Professor Nolan.

The grant is a renewal of Professor Nolan’s previous Carnegie award that funded similar consensus-building activities at the American Security Project, her affiliation prior to the Elliott School. The Elliott School, which last year received a $2 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation in support of three existing projects and which has significantly enhanced its programming on nuclear issues in recent years, will play a key role in the next phase of the project, offering its unique institutional resources to promote greater understanding.

Assistant Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) and Elliott School Associate Research Professor Robert Orttung spearheaded a successful grant application to the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant for $561,377 will support work evaluating the climate and socio-economic factors affecting the sustainability of arctic urban communities in Russia.

“We are delighted that the NSF has recognized the institutional strength of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies to organize this important network of scientists and policymakers to address arctic urban sustainability,” said Professor Orttung. “The theoretical consensus born out of this research network will be extremely important in the future when climate change increasingly challenges arctic environments.”

This five-year project is also being supported by GW’s Marlene Laurelle, research professor of international affairs, Dmitry Streletskiy, researcher in geography, and Nikolay Shiklomanov, assistant professor of geography, and will focus centrally on Russia given that it holds most of the Arctic’s energy resources and is the site of extensive arctic urban development.