About the ICCEES VIII World Congress

The ICCEES VIII World Congress is organized by the Swedish Society for the Study of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Sällskapet) on behalf of the International Council for Central and Eastern European Studies (ICCEES). The congress is a multidisciplinary academic event gathering about 1500-2000 researchers from all over the world. It is held once every five years under a different theme. On the 2010 venue in Stockholm, the congress will focus on “Eurasia: Prospects for Wider Cooperation”. Previous congresses have been organized in Banff (1974), Garmisch-Partenkirchen (1980), Washington D.C. (1985), Harrogate (1990), Warsaw (1995), Tampere (2000) and Berlin (2005).

The congress aims to encourage scholarly interaction via the ventilation of 1600 research papers through 400 different panels. In addition, there will be a number of thematic lectures and seminars as well as a book exhibition. The best research papers will be published.

The ICCEES VIII World Congress is organized by Sällskapet on behalf of ICCEES with Stockholm University and Södertörn University College acting as academic hosts and the Stockholm Convention Bureau as organizational partner.

The Swedish Society for the Study of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia is a forum for the exchange of information and ideas. The society is politically independent. Members are drawn from a number of different fields and have a common professional concern with Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. There are specialists from disciplines such as political science, sociology, economics, geography, history and philology, in addition to translators, diplomats, journalists and teachers. The main purpose of the society is to promote and facilitate scholarly debate and informal discussions within the field. The participants in the ICCEES World Congresses are researchers from a wide range of research fields with a common geographical focus on Central- and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

It is expected that the Congress will draw researchers from most parts of the world. The latest two events have attracted a high degree of participation of researchers from Eastern Europe and Russia, largely facilitated by subsidies from the organizers.

The implementation of the ICCEES World Congress is contingent on financial support from contributors. While the Tampere congress was largely financed by the Finish ministry of education, the German organizers to a large extent had to rely on commercial support.

The ICCEES World Congress has proven its importance as a cross-disciplinary forum with a large geographical scope, promoting discussion and exchange about research on Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. At a time when a growing number of conferences are organized around sub-regional analysis, the role of the ICCEES World Congress as a geographically inclusive, cross- and multi disciplinary platform has become more and more appreciated. (Downlad this text as a pdf-file)