The Eurasia Initiative is a new endeavour devoted to the study of the states and societies of the former USSR as well as their many links with Afghanistan, China, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and other neighbours. An undertaking of the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (CERES), the Initiative joins in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy’s mission of interdisciplinary collaboration with a focus on taking innovative approaches to challenge prevailing ideas that shape our understanding of Europe, Asia, and the world.

Necessarily diverse in its orientation, the Eurasia Initiative brings together scholars who examine a wide range of topics through various interdisciplinary lenses, including development, governance, justice, migration, interstate and interethnic relations, protest mobilization, social transformation, and state-society divides.

The Initiative incorporates the previously established CERES Central Asia Lecture Series and will develop further programming that takes a pan- or intercontinental view of Europe and Asia’s past, present, and future.

The Eurasia Initiative builds upon the historic strengths of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES). Founded in 1963, CREES operated as a hub for the study of Soviet space. By the end of the Cold War, CREES’s academic profile and research mission had grown considerably and positioned it to seize the many opportunities for research, teaching, and training opportunities that were created by the fall of communist regimes. The Eurasia Initiative will carry on this tradition, maintaining the Centre’s place at the forefront of geographically focused research and training  on Europe and Eurasia.