The Art and Humanities Research Council have highlighted a Glasgow project to illustrate ways their research funding can have a major economic and political impact and inform public policy.

A research project led by Professor David Smith in the Glasgow Baltic Research Unit at the University of Glasgow focused on the concept of non-territorial cultural autonomy for national minorities, which was first devised by socialist politicians in the late Austro-Hungarian Empire and later implemented in the independent Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during the 1920s.

Impacts included:

• Feeding into public policy on the role of minorities and multiculturalism.

• Providing expert knowledge in the drafting of laws on cultural autonomy to the governments of Romania and Armenia.

• Furthering understanding in international relations and policy.

Through this research project, Professor Smith was invited by the Romanian government to give a briefing on cultural autonomy for minorities. The invitation was issued via the European Centre for Minority Issues, and led to the Romanian government preparing a draft law on cultural autonomy that went before parliament.

It did not pass into law, but did help to shape the debate around minorities in Romania. The research has also fed into a draft law in Armenia. In addition, the research team participated in a roundtable organised by the New Security Foundation in 2008, which was in part concerned with discussing the possible relevance of cultural autonomy to a UK context.

The project also led to a joint seminar in 2007 with the Venice Commission, an advisory body on constitutional law set up within the Council of Europe. This seminar on the participation of minorities in public life was hosted by the Republic of Croatia in Zagreb. Subsequently, a member of the Venice Commission’s Secretariat stated that the seminar „succeeded in building a meaningful link between historical issues around cultural autonomy in Eastern Europe and today’s wider challenges faced by most European States, which have the duty under international law to create conditions ensuring a real participation in decision-making processes for various minority groups’.

This historically-based study illuminated broader debates on the political management of multiculturalism. It also brought to light an overlooked contribution to debates on European unity from Central and Eastern Europe, which has even more relevance now that the current economic crisis is putting increasing strains on the cohesion of the recently enlarged European Union.

Further details:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/centralandeasteuropeanstudies/balticunit/

Further information:
Martin Shannon, Media Relations Officer
University of Glasgow Tel: 0141 330 8593

First published: 10 July 2009

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