[Bilimsel Haber] University of Bologna: MIREES call for applications

[Gonul Pultar]

Dear colleagues and friends,

We would like to pass on information about the two-year *Master of Arts 
in Interdisciplinary Research and Studies on Eastern Europe (MIREES)* 
which might be of interest for your students.

This program was launched some years ago by the University of Bologna, 
Italy; it is taught entirely in English (120 ECTS) and provides a joint 
diploma of the Universities of Bologna <http://www.unibo.it/>, Ljubljana 
<http://www.uni-lj.si/English/english.asp>, Vytautas Magnus University 
at Kaunas <http://www.vdu.lt/>, Corvinus University of Budapest 
<http://www.uni-corvinus.hu/> and, from the next Academic Year 
2009-2010, the State University of St Petersburg <http://www.spbu.ru/>. 
MIREES students will spend the first year in Forlì (one of the five 
campuses of the University of Bologna), while in the second year a 
minimum of 5 months will be spent at Partner Universities and, in 
particular cases, at MIREES Associated Universities in the Balkans. A 
*mobility grant* is offered to all enrolled students.

More detailed information on the teaching plan and the Faculty, together 
with the application form, can be found at our web site: 
www.mirees.unibo.it <http://www.mirees.unibo.it/>. *The deadline for 
applications is May 15th, 2009*.

The program is *especially recommended for prospective PhD students*. 
Our best alumni are currently attending doctorate programs at the 
Universities of Oxford, Kent, the New School in New York and other 
prestigious international academic institutions. Moreover, the program 
is designed to forge analysts, area experts, consultants and mediators, 
to meet the needs of research institutes, the European Commission, 
international agencies, voluntary organizations and NGO’s, public 
administration, managers, corporations and banks located in East-Central 
Europe and the Balkans or promoting investments in these regions. Most 
of our alumni have found employment precisely in these fields.

The MIREES program offers specialized, in-depth knowledge of the 
post-socialist countries in transition, the new EU member states, and 
the new East-European neighbour countries to students with a BA in 
Economics, Politics, International Relations, History, Languages (and 
Slavic languages in particular), agricultural studies and cultural 
studies generally.

The program aims at developing *language skills*. MIREES offers courses 
in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Bulgarian, basic and advanced Russian, and 
Slovak (Hungarian and Lithuanian are also available in the 2nd year), as 
well as Italian for foreigners as an additional option. The curriculum 
stresses *interdisciplinary studies* in the economics of transition; 
politics and international relations; media studies; and history and 
cultural studies focused on Central, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. 
Thirdly, the *international dimension* of the programme is enhanced 
through student mobility, by an international faculty composed of 
prominent scholars of international repute, and a genuinely 
international student body. (In the previous five cycles we enrolled 
students from 21 countries including the US, Mexico, Russia, Georgia, 
Estonia, Macedonia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Germany, the 
United Kingdom, Turkey, Albania, Poland, Armenia, Norway, Slovenia, 
Bosnia-Herzegovina and, of course, Italy.)

Should you need further information, please feel free to contact the 
Tutor of the course at facscpol-fo.tutormirees at unibo.it 
<mailto:facscpol-fo.tutormirees at unibo.it> or the Faculty Student Office 
(info.spfo at unibo.it <mailto:info.spfo at unibo.it>, phone +39.0543.374145).

Thank you very much for your kind attention and cooperation.

Best regards,

Prof. Stefano Bianchini
Director, Master of Arts MIREES