The Regional Studies Center (RSC) is an independent think tank actively committed to strengthening the European Union’s Eastern Partnership programme (EaP). As an Armenia-based think tank, the RSC is actively engaged in promoting cross-border cooperation and collaboration between civil society organizations, research institutes and think tanks throughout the Eastern Partnership countries. 

As an integral component of this broader effort, the RSC has developed a new, innovative project entitled, “Knowledge Network” or “KnowNet,” aimed at promoting cross-border institutional cooperation in order to enhance partner capabilities and forging new collaborative research and analysis among EaP partners. 

This “KnowNet” project concept was first developed during the Black Sea NGO Forum in Tbilisi in November 2015, and seeks to leverage the synergy among partner organizations with an overarching goal of deepening political and economic reform to develop more sustainable democracies in the EaP region.

 

The Knowledge Network
“KnowNet”

“Knowledge is power, but knowledge is only powerful if it is shared”

“KNOWNET” – A KNOWLEDGE NETWORK TO PROMOTE INSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION AND COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH & ANALYSIS AMONG EASTERN PARTNERSHIP (EaP) PARTNERS

 

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The RSC Knowledge Network, or “KnowNet,” project consists of two main objectives:

• to promote institutional cooperation between civil society organizations, public and private research institutes and think tanks in the six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine);
• to foster collaborative research and analysis between partners in the EaP countries. The research and analytical products will then be published and disseminated, aimed at enhancing the capacity and networking ties of partner institutions and organizations.

 

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

In order to meet the project’s two main objectives, the RSC plans a set of five main project activities:

First, the RSC will focus on developing innovative measures designed to promote institutional cooperation between civil society organizations, public and private research institutes and think tanks within the six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. 

Moreover, this effort will build upon our own informal network of policy practioners and civil society organizations in each of the EaP countries, and the RSC will take the lead in formalizing these ties and to expand the Knowledge Network to include academic institutions and relevant representatives from the private sector as well. 

Second, the RSC will also facilitate a new effort of collaborative research and analysis between partners in the EaP countries, with an initial effort to share and disseminate a compilation of relevant research and analysis of developments within each of the six EaP countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine).

Third, following the sharing of relevant research and analysis, the RSC will then publish and promote the products (“deliverables”) from the process of the collaborative research and analysis.

Fourth, the RSC will leverage the synergy of other activities and projects underway within the EaP countries, aimed at enhancing the capacity and networking ties of partner institutions and organizations, both with each other and with relevant international institutions.

And as the fifth, longer term project activity, the RSC also plans to better defend the space in which civil society operates by broadening the set of stakeholders in democratization in four ways: (1) helping civil society and other project partners to engage in the public policy process in each of their countries; (2) to work with the media in each country in order to enable information-sharing and elevate the level of discourse and debate; (3) to focus on the public at large in order to educate a better-informed citizenry; and (4) to engage and empower youth as “agents of change” within their countries.

CORE COMPONENTS 

Government:             engage in the public policy process
Media:                        enable information-sharing to elevate the level of discourse and debate
Public:                        educate to foster better-informed citizenry
Youth:                        empower youth as “agents of change”