Our starting point is to acknowledge the fundamental connectedness of two questions typically siloed and kept apart in both mainstream security research and policy-making: whose security matters and who can speak security in regional and global politics?

We answer these questions from the creative merging of various critical perspectives – critical relationalism, feminism, de/postcolonialism, emphasis on small state and CEE expertise and peace research – that enable a more nuanced reading of security from the margins and bottom-up perspectives, and in close dialogue with wider security contexts and matters.

We argue that it is the critical vocabulary of continuum of violence, coloniality, ethico-politically charged relationalism, politics of knowledge production and the value of knowledge from CEE, and the agency and experience of small states that provides the tools to successfully unpack the politics of expertise from the CEE without losing sight of how the question of diverse security expertise and experience is tied to wider structural matters (e.g. are we, as scholars, policymakers or other expert communities, focused or conflict management of conflict prevention).

In sum, this Horizon Twinning project provides a critical relational perspective on peace and security in Central and Eastern Europe. It brings together and expands knowledge on security in academia, policymaking and civil society.

The project is a cooperation between Tallinn University, Tampere University and the University of Copenhagen. A core aim is the establishment of the Centre for Security Studies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEESHub) at Tallinn University. The centre aims to become a key research hub in the CEE offering critical research on security and welcoming diverse CEE perspectives. The larger aim of this is to work towards a security agenda that values contextual nuances and moves towards building more sustainable peace in Europe and beyond.

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