The ceremony of handing over the diplomas took place at University of Warsaw on June 27, 2023. Diplomas were presented to 40 scholarship holders: 34 scholarship holders of two-semester program and 6 participants of one-semester Kirkland Research program for researchers.
In 2022/23 academic year scholarship holders from ten countries followed their individual educational program in law, economy, management, international relations, journalism, and social and political sciences at Polish universities in four cities: Kraków, Lublin, Warszawa, and Wrocław. The biggest group of this-year’s alumni of the Kirkland Program and Kirkland Research are citizens of Ukraine (20 people), while the remaining come from Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. They are scholars, public and local administration workers, economists, lawyers, culture managers.
Polish-American Freedom Foundation Program Director Agnieszka Mazur and President of the Leaders of Change Foundation Agata Wierzbowska-Miazga congratulated the alumni. The ceremony was also attended by regional coordinators as well as socio-cultural animators cooperating with the Kirkland Program.
The alumni listened to the presentation on international academic cooperation presented by Dr. Dawid Kostecki, the director of Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. The presentation was at the same time a form of encouragement for the alumni to take advantage of broad offer of NAAE programs.
The concert given by Berik Batyrkhan, a conductor, who played the kobyz – an ancient string instrument popular among Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Bashkirs and Tatars – added splendor to the ceremony.
The Lane Kirkland Scholarship Program has been run since 2000. Its objective is to share the Polish experiences in transformation and European integration with representatives of Eastern European, South Caucasian, and Central Asian countries by offering two-semester complementary courses at Polish universities. The program is currently addressed to candidates from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, but also from Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. In the course of their individual programs, the scholarship holders study selected aspects of economics and management, public administration and business, law, social and political sciences, journalism, NGO management, or culture management. Since 2016, the program offer has been extended with Kirkland Research one-semester course for research workers.
Each year, the program is attended by ca. 45 individuals. Between 2000 and 2023, the program was completed by 1,033 people who came from 13 countries (986 scholarship holders of Kirkland Program and 47 of Kirkland Research), including 560 from Ukraine, 180 from Belarus, 67 from Georgia, 69 from Russia, 38 from Armenia, 30 from Kazakhstan, 25 from Moldova, 17 from Kyrgyzstan, 15 from Azerbaijan, 12 from Lithuania, 10 from Slovakia, as well as 5 from Uzbekistan and 5 from Tajikistan.
