Outreach: Collaborations with the Alliance Program

Over the past 12 months, Alliance and the Columbia Global Centers | Paris continued to explore new ways of collaborating and, in the face of the pandemic, sought to support the needs of students and faculty alike.

In this spirit, Alliance partnered with CGC | Paris, CGC | Amman, Sciences Po, and the Columbia University Writing Center to offer a one-week intensive seminar for graduate students and early-career scholars seeking to publish in English. The seminar—From Idea to Publication: Writing for English Language Audiences—was hosted on Zoom from July 20 – 24, 2020 for 50 participants. The writing program was aimed at helping students hone their writing habits for English-language academic settings and publications. Participants learned strategies for shaping projects valued by English-speaking conferences and journals alike. In small group workshops, they implemented these strategies on their current projects. The workshops allowed students to deepen their understanding about publishing and presenting in English with a view toward reaching wider audiences. Participants included 43 doctoral students and 1 postdoc from Parisian universities, 1 doctoral student from a Spanish university, and 5 members of CGC | Amman’s Fellowship Program for Emerging Displaced Scholars.

Building on the success of this first workshop, Alliance, CGC | Paris, and UGE | Paris organized a second intensive writing seminar from April 19 – 23, 2021 for a group of 16 students from French universities.

In addition, the Alliance partnered with CGC | Paris and Columbia’s European Institute to organize the webinar series, “Debating The Future of Europe,” with six sessions that took place between October 2020 and March 2021. See programming report for further details.

Moreover, in the midst of the pandemic, a number of Alliance doctoral mobility students were offered a working space at Reid Hall and, in collaboration with colleagues at CGC | Paris, Alliance provided informational webinars to prospective students interested in applying for Alliance doctoral mobility grants.

Finally, the 10th Annual Alliance Summer School in sustainable development will be held virtually from May 12 – 14, and May 19 – 20, 2021. Organized in partnership with Alliance, CGC | Santiago, and CGC | Paris, this five-day virtual program is geared toward graduate students in economics, environmental science, public policy, and related fields. This year’s edition is focused on the intersection of the natural environment and socioeconomic inequality. Each day, the summer school will open with presentations by world-class researchers and policymakers who work on topics related to inequality and the environment; participants will then work in groups to develop a unique research proposal related to the theme. Students will also participate in practical workshops geared toward developing data analysis skills. The goal of the summer school is to bring together a diverse group of researchers for building research skills and developing connections for future research collaboration.

Given the challenges of 2020 that have continued into the present year, we are proud to have established these partnerships that have in turn allowed us to continue providing the world-class educational and research experiences that our students and faculty have come to expect.