This year, the OEI, under the leadership of Julia Zimmermann from the Department of Economics, has once again joined forces with the FU's Department of Academic Relations to apply for EU mobility funds to Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This year's applications to the Eastern Europe application region are intended to secure existing exchanges to Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine through 2025. For Ukraine, funding has been requested for the Kyiv universities Taras Shevchenko and Mohyla Academy, Ivan Franko University in Lviv, and Mechnikov University in Odessa. Especially due to the war-related ruptures in educational and research biographies and the destruction of infrastructure in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, we hope to strengthen our academic ties to Ukraine.

Conceived as a transnational interlinked space, this year an additional focus was placed on the application region of Central Asia. Applications were submitted for mobility funds with the leading and in part English-speaking universities in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, which are intended to strengthen and expand the Central Asia competence at the Institute. Decisions on the two regional applications submitted in mid-February are traditionally made in June. These applications would not have been possible without the active support of Dimitrios Moschos, the student assistant in the Economics Department.