Meet the Harriman Institute! Opportunities and funding

Studying at SIPA gives one great freedom in exploring all sorts of emerging concentrations, fields, and interests. However, did you know that SIPA also hosts the first USSR-focused academic center in the United States? In this blog post, I would like to explore some of the activities and funding opportunities focused on the post-Soviet area. Meet the Harriman Institute!

The Harriman Institute at Columbia University is one of the world’s leading academic institutions for the study of Russia, Eurasia, and East Central Europe. The institute also accepts students for its MARS-REERS graduate program, many of whom you would meet in your classes in the International Affairs Building.

At Harriman, you can find distinguished professors and scholars focusing on history, culture, politics and economy of various countries in the region including Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and many more!

As a SIPA student, you can take Harriman courses, declare an optional minor in regional studies at the Harriman Institute, and even apply for their graduate student funding opportunities.

In fact, the Institute provides financial support for research projects, travel, and internships for graduate students across the entire university through a variety of grants and fellowship awards. 

In particular, two interesting funding opportunities I would like to mention are the Academic Year Fellowships for Graduate Students, and the Summer Civil Society Graduate Fellowships, both of which I was fortunate to receive this year. Academic-year fellowship applications become available in November with a deadline usually in February. Awards are then announced in early April. Awards may cover partial or full tuition, and for Ph.D. students, also include a stipend. 

Thanks to the Summer Civil Society Fellowship, I was able to spend six weeks in Kyrgyzstan teaching in a school in a small town of Kerben. It was an amazing and very unique experience!

Please bear in mind that these opportunities are usually for first-year and partially second-year students, so you still have a lot of time to prepare!

If you are interested in the region, or would like to explore all the exciting opportunities Harriman has to offer, you can subscribe to the Institute’s newsletter or get in touch with them here.

I hope that you now know more about the Harriman Institute. See you next time!