GEORGIAN INSTITUTE OF POLITICS

Their core work

The Georgian Institute of Politics is a Tbilisi-based political think tank that researches governance, security, and societal resilience across the South Caucasus and Europe's eastern neighborhood. Their work focuses on fragile and contested state structures, EU external relations, and — more recently — the dynamics of radicalization and its reversal through detection, resolution, and reintegration programs. They bring a rare ground-level perspective on post-Soviet political realities to European research consortia, serving as a credible regional knowledge partner. Their participation in large EU-funded projects reflects a role as a specialist contributor of local and regional expertise that Western partners cannot easily replicate.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first H2020 project (2018–2021), GIP worked on EU external relations and the political science of limited statehood — descriptive and analytical work grounded in geopolitics and international relations. By their second project (2020–2024), the focus shifted decisively toward applied security research: de-radicalization, justice systems, and the use of AI and spatial analysis to detect and address extremism. This is a meaningful shift from explaining contested political orders to actively researching how to prevent and reverse radicalization within them.

GIP is moving from descriptive geopolitical analysis toward applied, data-assisted security research — making them an increasingly relevant partner for projects at the intersection of political science, justice systems, and digital methods.

How they like to work

GIP has participated exclusively as a non-leading partner in both projects, suggesting their role is to contribute specific regional and thematic expertise rather than to drive project design or coordination. Despite only two participations, they have accumulated 30 unique consortium partners across 20 countries — a testament to the large, multi-country consortia these projects attracted. This pattern makes them a reliable specialist contributor who integrates well into complex European partnerships without requiring a leadership mandate.

Two projects have connected GIP with 30 distinct partners across 20 countries — an unusually wide footprint for such limited H2020 participation, reflecting the large consortium structures of the RIA projects they joined. Their network spans both Western European research institutions and organizations in Europe's eastern and southern neighborhood.

What sets them apart

GIP is among a small number of Georgian research organizations with H2020 participation, giving them a distinctive position as a gateway institution between EU research networks and the South Caucasus. Their combination of deep regional political knowledge and emerging capabilities in AI-assisted security analysis is difficult for Western European partners to replicate from the outside. For consortium builders addressing EU neighborhood policy, radicalization in post-Soviet contexts, or justice and security in contested political environments, GIP fills a gap that few comparable institutions can.

Highlights from their portfolio

• D.Rad
  The largest and most methodologically diverse project GIP joined, combining AI, spatial analysis, and justice research to address de-radicalization across Europe and beyond — and the clearest signal of GIP's evolving capabilities.
• EU-LISTCO
  Addressed EU external action in fragile and contested states — politically significant given Georgia's own status as a contested neighborhood country — establishing GIP's credentials in European geopolitical research.