Upcoming Events
China’s Rise and its Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy
We cordially invite you to our very first public events of 2015 season: public lectures of Professor Robert Sutter of The George Washington University that will take place in Brno on January 6 and in Prague on January 7. The prominent China expert will talk about China’s Rise and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. The events are organized with support of the U.S. Embassy Prague.
AMO’s Top 10 in 2014
- To put it clearly, the year 2014 meant an expansion of AMO. We have launched a number of new activities, expanded our flagship projects, established new partnerships, increased our media impact, and started cooperation with new experienced analysts in international affairs. Our geographical scope has broadened as well. Except our traditional target countries, namely the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Belarus, Egypt, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, we have returned to Belgium, Germany and Georgia, and we have implemented projects in Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan for the first time.
- The 19th year of our oldest and biggest educational project Prague Student Summit was concluded with the motto “School isn’t Enough” only to launch the anniversary 20th season two months later. Improvements for the 2014/15 academic year include the launch of the very first international V4+ Model in the project history. University students from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Germany are eligible to apply. The V4+ Model has complemented the existing UN, NATO and EU models. Moreover, we organized the other educational seminars on European citizenship and the work of European institutions in total of 12 regions of the Czech Republic.
- We have published 30 original expert papers. Among top 3 most read policy papers areNATO and Russia after Crimea: From Failed Socialization to Renewed Containment, NATO after the Wales Summit: Readying the Alliance for the Future and Close the Gap and Decelerate: The Key to the Czech Republic’s Fully-Fledged EU Membership in Fifteen Keywords. The other most popular papers were Enlargement Ten Years on: New Europe’s Contribution to Single Market (research paper), Appointment of Positions in the European Parliament: The Czech Republic as a Victor? (briefing paper in Czech only) and TTIP: Benefits and Challenges for the Czech Republic and the EU (conference paper).
- Our blog on Czech foreign policy at Hospodarske noviny was read by almost record-breaking 100,000 of users. Our most popular commentary dealt with President Zeman’s stance towards Ukraine crisis titled How was Milos Zeman Mistaken… about Ukraine (in Czech only).
- Our Research Fellows appeared in the Czech Television new channel CT24 for 47 times. The most popular appearance at our You Tube channel has been an interview named The West Condemns Radicals’ Cruelty focused on the murder of U.S. journalist James Foley by ISIS militants.
- We have been developing at the most used social networks, too. Our Facebook account has reached nearly 4,000 fans at the end of the year while we have about 1,800 followers at our Twitter. Both accounts are fed by information from our work 6 days a week. The post with the highest reach on Facebook was the publication of the Agenda for Czech Foreign Policy 2014 which was viewed by almost 30,000 people.
- We have confirmed our position among think-tanks that have an impact on the EU level. The conference paper Eastern Partnership Five Years On: Time for a New Strategy? mapping our international conference that evaluated 5 years of the EU external policy was used in abriefing for hearings of the new Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Johannes Hahn in European Parliament in September.
- We held more than 100 public and close conferences, seminars, roundtables, lectures, workshops and trainings in the Czech Republic and abroad. We hosted Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Lubomir Zaoralek, Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili, former Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fule, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevicius, U.S. Department of State’s Coordinator for Cyber Issues Christopher Painter, EU Chief Negotiator of TTIP Ignacio Garcia Bercero, Ambassadors of the United States Andrew H. Schapiro and Canada Otto Jelinek, Executive Secretary General of the European External Action Service Pierre Vimont, High State Attorney in the capital city of Prague Lenka Bradacova or Russian historian Andrey B. Zubov.
- The long-term cooperation with Belarusian teachers and pedagogical staff resulted in the organization of the 1st year of contest “We, the Citizens of Belarus” aimed at an increase in civic participation and a development of soft skills of high school students which took place in May in Minsk. The contest has been based on the renowned Czech alternative named “Me, the Citizen”.
- As a part of our long-term educational project in Ukraine, a pilot module on Social Communication has been added into the curriculum of Taras Sevchenko University in Kyiv. It has demonstrated an excellent example of a link between the academic and non-profit sector during the implementation of public benefit activities. Consequently, it has an ambition to serve as an example to other Ukrainian universities. The activity has been inspired by courses of active extra classes at Masaryk University.
Our activities would not have been possible without the generous support of our partners. AMO strategic partners include Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, International Visegrad Fund, Czech-German Future Fund, The Kellner Family Foundation, Representation of the European Commission in the Czech Republic, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and NATO. Not only them but many other supporters deserve our gratitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0_EhUtzvvs