CRRC, ARISC and American Councils are pleased to announce the 8th talk of the Spring 2022 Tbilisi Works-in-Progress series!
****Given the continuing COVID situation, the Works-in-Progress sessions will continue in virtual format until further notice. To register for the event and automatically receive the Zoom info, click on the link below****
https://iliauni-edu-ge.zoom.us/…/tZYvceChpz8sEtErCir023…
“Academic Research in Post-Soviet Countries: The Global Visibility of Research Output from Georgia”
Maia Chankseliani, University of Oxford
Date: May 4, 2022, at 18:30 Tbilisi time
The existing scarce literature on Georgian and broader post-Soviet higher education and research adopts a deficit lens to investigate the barriers to the development of capacity in these areas at three levels: individual, institutional, and systemic. This presentation will move away from this familiar deficit lens to present some recent analyses of international peer-reviewed publications from all post-Soviet countries, showing that certain Georgia-based scholars have made significant achievements in producing globally visible research. Among fifteen post-Soviet countries, Georgia-based academics are leaders in terms of publishing papers in the world’s top journals and have the highest impact, comparable only to the publications of Estonia-based and Armenia-based scholars. This recent finding indicates that there are pockets of excellence in a system that is poorly funded. This presentation will also give an overview of some emerging finding from an ongoing study on the organisational separation of higher education and research to show that Georgia has overcome the Soviet legacy in this regard. However, the development of a research culture at universities requires the deparochialisation of research. It also requires locally negotiated and agreed goals rather than top-down orders, regulations, and inspection. In other words, the foundation of the process of developing a research culture at universities is trust in scholars and in universities. Trust brings freedom, the freedom for academics and universities to decide on their own paths for developing a research culture.
Maia Chankseliani is Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education at the University of Oxford, UK. She researches societal, institutional, and policy forces that shape tertiary education and the potential of tertiary education and research for transforming societies. Maia Chankseliani has worked on a number of externally funded research projects and consultancies involving the UK Government agencies responsible for education and skills, UKRI/ESRC, British Council, US State Department, World Bank, Qatar Foundation, USAID, UNICEF, the European Commission. Maia Chankseliani is Associate Editor of International Journal of Educational Research. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Education and Development Forum (UKFIET). Twitter: @MChankseliani
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Although this presentation currently take place in virtual format, in observation of the spirit of the Chatham House Rule to which the series generally adheres, the talk will not be recorded and we courteously request that the other participants refrain from recording and/or distributing it as well. The opinions expressed in WiP talks are those of the speakers alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC, ARISC or of American Councils.
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WiP is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that normally takes place at the new office of CRRC at Liziko Kavtaradze St. 1. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.