Why study at ExpREES?

The aim of ExpREES is to train experts specializing both in their own discipline as well as in area studies focusing on Eastern Europe, such as Eastern Central Europe and Ukraine; on Russia; Central Asia and South Caucasus. Our multidisciplinary approach provides you with a versatile perspective on the history, the present and future of these areas.

ExpREES is suitable for students from a variety of disciplines, from humanities and social sciences to business and technology. Contact teaching, online courses, summer schools and excursions will help you to find your strengths and develop your career, not to mention completing your master’s thesis!

ExpREES will give you a chance to develop your skills and competences which may help you to strengthen your employability in the public and private sectors as well as in academia. In addition, ExpREES aims to enhance your employability skills by creating connections with work life. ExpREES graduates have been employed by national and international organizations, public administration or as researchers focusing on Eastern Europe, Russia or other countries in Eurasia as well as pursuing careers typical for their own disciplines.

ExpREES is coordinated by the , University of Helsinki. ExpREES has a multidisciplinary curriculum made up of optional courses offered by the network of universities and compulsory courses offered by the Aleksanteri Institute. From among optional courses, students may choose courses best suited to strengthen their own expertise. In addition to the coordination of optional courses offered by the network of universities, the Aleksanteri Institute organises three compulsory courses: an ExpREES summer school, the master’s thesis seminar and a multimodal course. ExpREES also offers annual study trips abroad. ExpREES encourages its students to study abroad through the exchange programmes available in their home universities, and, upon availability, offers opportunities to participate in courses and summer schools abroad.

• ExpREES studies make up a minor and should be recognised as part of the student’s master’s degree in one of the network universities.
• Students are enrolled in their home universities while studying at ExpREES. These studies include both compulsory (15 cr) and optional (minimum of 10 cr) courses on Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia provided by the network universities. As an ExpREES student you can choose the most interesting and relevant optional courses for your own degree. Please note that the three compulsory courses are given in Finnish. If your Finnish for academic purposes is not yet at such a level that you can take these courses, we will find other suitable courses to compensate these three – so no worries! 
• A student’s master’s thesis (30-40 cr) has to be related to Eastern Europe, Russia and/or Eurasia. The main supervisor comes from the student’s own field of study in their home university. In addition, ExpREES offers multidisciplinary master’s thesis seminars for ExpREES students. These seminars are designed to complement seminars in the student’s own field of study offered by their home university.
• Students graduate from their home university, so the degree is awarded by one of the network universities. As an ExpREES student you will get an additional certificate for completing the ExpREES programme.

The uniqueness of ExpREES lies in its nationwide network, multidisciplinarity and flexibility. ExpREES studies are available for students from a wide variety of academic disciplines, as long as you are enrolled as a master’s student in any of the twelve universities in the network (see ‘How to apply’). ExpREES is also exceptional thanks to its historical perspective: the programme has been running since 1998 (first as the Master’s School in Russian and East European Studies). Its teaching, organisation and activities have been developed systematically, based on the feedback from students and teachers for more than twenty years. To date, over 600 students have graduated from the programme and the alumni can be found working as specialists in both the private and public sectors and up to the level of ministers and high officials.