Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Center for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, and The Stanford Institute for Creativity & the Arts (SiCa).

It is commonly believed that America and Europe are very different societies, and growing apart. A look at the data shows that the anecdotes are misleading and that the differences across the Atlantic have been overstated.

Peter Baldwin, Professor of History at UCLA, is author of several books on the comparative history of European and American state building, most recently, Disease and Democracy: The Industrialized World Faces AIDS.

Introduction by FSI Senior Fellow Josef Joffe.

In her presentation "Russian Science Policy: Before and During the Economic Crisis," Irina Dezhina will outline the major characteristics of the R&D sector in Russia and offer an analysis of government science policy on the eve of the global financial crisis. She will also discuss the various reactions to the financial crisis in Russia, both by the federal government and the science sector, including companies investing in R&D. Finally, Dezhina will analyze the effectiveness of the Russian government's anti-crisis policy in terms of its impact on supporting science and innovation.

Irina Dezhina is a Head of Division at the Institute for the World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. She also teaches the course of “Modern Problems of Russian Science and Innovation Policy” at the State University – Higher School of Economics. Dezhina earned her candidate degree in science and technology policy studies in 1992 from the Institute of National Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and doctorate degree – in 2007 from the Institute for the World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

She was Senior Research Fellow at the Analytical Center on Science and Industrial Policy, a think tank for the Russian Ministry of Science and Technology Policy and State Committee on Industrial Policy (1993-1995). Dezhina was also a Fulbright Scholar at the MIT Program “Science, Technology, and Society” (1997), and worked as Science Policy Analyst at Stanford Research Institute International, Washington, DC, USA (1998-1999). For twelve years (1995-2007) she worked at the Institute for the Economy in Transition (Moscow), a Russian think-tank. She has served as a consultant for the World Bank, OECD, and New Eurasia Foundation, and the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (since 1999). Dezhina has more then 150 publications including 6 monographs.

Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europea and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and Department of History at Stanford University.

The Forum on Contemporary Europe designed and sponsored this meeting as part of its series on global conflict, and peace and reconciliation.  This session was conducted as a high level, by-invitation discussion to bring together policy leaders and FCE Research Affiliates aimed to consider the potential benefit of Stanford research on conflict and negotiation for the continuing process of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.  The meeting included the UK Permanent Secretary for Northern Ireland, with Stanford faculty and FSI/FCE Research Affiliates including

• Helen Stacy, Principal Investigator, Project on Human Rights
• Allen Weiner, Co-Director, Stanford Center for International Conflict Negotiation,
  
• Byron Bland, Co-Director, Stanford Center for International Conflict Negotiation, and
  
• Roland Hsu, Assistant Director, Stanford Forum on Contemporary Europe. 
  

Also participating were Robin Newman, UK Vice Consul Political, Press and Public Affairs, and Andy Pike, UK Consul for Northern Ireland in Washington, D.C.  Also invited were a select group of post-graduate scholars currently engaged in research with policy implications on human rights, global justice, and international law.

The meeting addressed multiple engagement and intervention strategies, including using the office of the Permanent Secretary with his deep knowledge of historically contested issues and parties, as well as appealing to international mediation from offices including the European Court of Justice and Court of Human Rights.  Participants also discussed possible lessons to be drawn from this peace process for long-standing conflicts in settings such as Darfur, Sri Lanka, and Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa.

The Forum on Contemporary Europe expresses its appreciation for the Office of the UK Consul General in San Francisco co-sponsorship for this event.