Dear subscribers,

Our first CENTREPEACE newsletter is here. With the start of 2025, we're excited to share with you the progress and insights that have made our journey so far since we began in June 2024.

CENTREPEACE stands for Central and Eastern European Security Cooperation Cluster. This project was founded to connect experts in conflict and security studies and to establish networks for high-quality research in security cooperation to enhance Europe's resilience. With the help of our community and building relationships over the past few months, we've been laying the groundwork for this initiative to get off to a strong start.

Thanks for being a part of our story. We are excited about what's to come and can't wait to let you know more in the months to come.

The CENTREPEACE Team

During the kick-off meeting in June, we have established 3 research focus groups (FG) and one focus group on research excellence:

• FG Cognitive Warfare analyzes security cooperation and institutional capacitybuilding within the framework of cognitive threats focusing on Central and Eastern Europe and the Nordic countries.
• FG Defence Industry examines the transformation of societal roles ascribed to defence industry as a major factor in national policy and international collaboration.
• FG Eastern Partnership studies the clash of diffusion between the European Union and authoritarian influences from Russia in shaping the trajectories of Eastern Partnership nations, while analyzing the strategic weaponization of essential resources as tools of geopolitical influence.
• FG Research Excellence aims to strengthen research management and administration skills and capacities to reach European research funding.

People who are part of CENTREPEACE have been able to visit partner institutions as visiting scholars to share best practices and research insights. Since the beginning of the project, Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen has come to Masaryk University to talk about his in-depth research on "How Europe Got Russia Wrong" and his research experience from Finland.