Director's Message

Center for Social Sciences was founded as a spin-off organization of Social Sciences Support Program of Open Society – Georgia Foundation in October 2003. We have come a long way since the Centre for Social Sciences was founded in October 2003, as a spin- off from the Social Science Support Program. Its creation was fortuitously timed. A month later the country underwent its Rose Revolution, an event that raised hopes for democracy and civil reform both at home and abroad.

Since that time many areas of the educational system in Georgia have undergone major overhaul. The university admission process has become vastly more transparent, new laws governing the accreditation of universities have been passed and academic institutions throughout the country have started to reorganise their internal administration and teaching methods.

CSS has played a significant part in this process, providing expertise on educational reform and a forum for discussion whether it concerns Higher Educational reform or reform more generally. We were heavily involved in the formulation of the new university accreditation process. In 2004 we formed a Graduate Studies Committee that has now agreed and implemented a major restructuring of the administration and teaching of Social Science at TSU. We have facilitated and contributed to discussions on educational reform and we are currently formulating a new PhD program.

At the same time, CSS is now coming to the end of its 4th year of Masters Degree teaching. We are currently running two programs. Gender Studies is taught in Georgian. Transformation in the South Caucasus, is taught in English and is unusual because it has recruited students from Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

All together we at CSS feel that this remains a time of great opportunity; for change in the educational system and in the country as a whole, and we remain committed to helping that change in any way we can.

Marine Chitashvili, Director of the Center for Social Sciences