Assoc. Prof. Dr Mher D. Sahakyan, Director of the Armenian China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research and editor of the Routledge Handbook of Chinese and Eurasian International Relations, has been offered an opportunity to conduct research at the renowned School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University in the framework of the prestigious Fulbright Visiting Scholarship program.
During this fellowship, Dr. Sahakyan will collaborate with Dr. David Bulman, an Assistant Professor of China Studies and International Affairs. He will travel to the US to research “The geostrategies of the United States and China in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.” As mentioned in the invitation letter of SAIS, this research “fits well with the mission of the School and the interest of its faculty.”
Director Sahakyan expressed his gratitude to the SAIS for the invitation and J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for the grant. He acknowledged the honour of conducting research at SAIS, a renowned institution with outstanding achievements in global academia. He also highlighted the potential impact of his research during the Fulbright Visiting Scholarship, which aims to strengthen cooperation between the Armenian side and SAIS and other American institutions, and to contribute to the promotion of sustainable peace in the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
“Fulbright Scholars — college and university faculty, administrators, and researchers, as well as artists and professionals — build their skills and connections, gain valuable international insights, and return home to share their experiences with their students and colleagues. Scholars come from and go to all institution types and geographic regions across the United States and around the world.
The Fulbright Scholar Program for academics and professionals awards more than 1,700 fellowships each year, enabling 800 U.S. Scholars to go abroad and 900 Visiting Scholars to come to the United States. As a Fulbright Scholar.”
SAIS, Johns Hopkins University
“The school was founded in 1943 by Paul H. Nitze and Christian A. Herter, statesmen who sought to prepare the next generation of leaders to meet the complex challenges the U.S. and the world would face following World War II. A distinguished faculty of scholars and policy experts developed an innovative curriculum that emphasized international politics, economics, and foreign languages. That program, combined with skills training and experiential learning, helped prepare students to make a difference in government, civil society, and the private sector. In 1955, SAIS established a campus in Bologna, Italy, and in 1986 the school initiated one of the first Western university programs in the People’s Republic of China in Nanjing. Today, SAIS carries on this tradition. Johns Hopkins SAIS alumni number more than 20,000 graduates, a network of professionals working across the globe. From private-sector executives to entrepreneurs, leaders of nongovernmental organizations to ambassadors, and international media correspondents to energy consultants, SAIS alumni are defined by their innovative thinking, analytical approach, and policy expertise. They are leaders in their fields, life-long students committed to the betterment of the world.”
Mher D. Sahakyan is the editor of Routledge Handbook of Chinese and Eurasian International Relations and China and Eurasian Powers in Multipolar World Order 2.0: Security, Diplomacy, Economy and Cybersecurity, published by Routledge. He also edited (along with Heinz Gärtner) China and Eurasia: Rethinking Cooperation and Contradictions in the Era of Changing World Order, published by Routledge in September 2021. He is the author of the book China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Armenia, published in Armenian and Russian. It was shortlisted by the International Convention of Asia Scholars in Leiden, Netherlands, for its 2021 book prize. Mher is also the author of “The New Great Power Competition in Central Asia: Opportunities and Challenges for the Gulf,” a contribution published in 2021 by the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in the United Arab Emirates. Mher is the founder and director of the China‑Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, a foundation in Armenia. He is a 2024 LEWI Visiting Fellow at the David C. Lam Institute for East‑West Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. He holds a doctorate in international relations from China’s Nanjing University. Mher Sahakyan was an AsiaGlobal Fellow at the Asia Global Institute of the University of Hong Kong (2020/21 and 2022), where he published nine articles.
In 2023, the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia’s Supreme Certifying Committee awarded him an associate professorship in political science. He is an elected advisory board member of the International Institute for Peace, Austria, and the School of Liberal Arts & Humanities, Woxsen University, India. Mher is also a member of the International Political Science Association and the Author’s Licensing and Collecting Society. He founded the annual Eurasian Research on Modern China and Eurasia conference, fostering academic collaborations and research partnerships.
Mher has received invitations to showcase his research as a keynote speaker at the Renmin University, Corvinus University of Budapest, University of Calicut, and as a speaker at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, International Institute for Peace, Moscow State University, Eastern Economic Forum, University of Hong Kong, Shanghai University, University of Edinburgh, King’s College London, Academic Council on the United Nations System, Delegation of the EU to China, City University of Hong Kong, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hong Kong Baptist University, Istanbul Gedik University, and several others.
Mher D Sahakyan 
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