About

The Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) is a network of over 125 academics, mainly from North America and post-Soviet Eurasia, advancing new approaches to research on security, politics, economics, and society in Russia and Eurasia. Its core missions are to connect scholarship to policy on and in Russia and Eurasia and to foster a community, especially of mid-career and rising scholars, committed to developing policy-relevant and collaborative research.

PONARS Eurasia offers analysis and influences policy debates through its Policy Memos, Commentaries, Events, Conferences, Workshops, Digital Resources (Videos & Podcasts), and special projects such as Point & Counterpoint and Policy Perspectives volumes. The program’s annual conference brings over 30 leading scholars together with nearly 200 members of the DC policy, NGO, and academic community. Its signature workshops and conferences produce innovative discussions and widely-distributed publications on contemporary political, economic, and social topics.

PONARS Eurasia is located at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and is co-directed by Henry E. Hale and Marlene Laruelle. Cory Welt served as co-director until 2016. From 2007-2009, the program was based at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Between 2001-2007, the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS, the precursor to PONARS Eurasia) was part of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The program was founded at Harvard University in the late 1990s and housed at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2000-2001. PONARS Eurasia is supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York and The George Washington University/IERES.