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Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies and director of the 鲍鱼tv Institute for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (IREES), Golfo Alexopoulos, has been awarded a $700,000 grant to study Russian speakers in online spaces, including Kremlin propaganda and internet usage patterns among Russians. 

Alexopoulos, principal investigator on the grant, will also be collaborating with Mark Kramer of Harvard University and Nadia Boyadjieva of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. 

The grant, which is funded for a three-year term by the Department of Defense (DoD), is awarded as part of the Minerva Research Initiative, which supports basic research in social and behavioral sciences on topics of relevance to U.S. national security. 

A total of $18 million in grants were awarded to 11 university-based faculty teams. The 11 university awardees were selected from approximately 130 applicants in six categories, using a merit competition that evaluated proposals for their potential to make foundational contributions to basic social science and alignment with the National Defense Strategy. 

鈥淭his鈥疢inerva grant enhances 鲍鱼tv鈥檚 research profile in the area of national security. It also enhances 鲍鱼tv鈥檚 research profile overall because Minerva grants are highly competitive federal grants. Only about 8% of applications were funded in this cycle,鈥� Alexopoulos said. 

Alexopoulos鈥� area of expertise is rooted in the politics and history of the Soviet Union, more specifically, the Stalin era. Her work in this area has enabled her to develop a deep understanding of the Soviet/Russian security services that have shaped figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin and his closest entourage. 

鈥淭he anti-Western narratives, ideological tropes and conspiracies, and geopolitical objectives of current Russian efforts have their origins in an earlier period,鈥� Alexopoulos explains. 鈥淭he Soviet security services were actively engaged in what they called 鈥榓ctive measures鈥� to spread disinformation and undermine their perceived Cold War adversaries in the West. In many ways, we are witnessing the continuity of an earlier practice, but one turbocharged by new technologies like social media.鈥� 

As director of IREES, she has worked with various professionals from CENTCOM and SOCOM over the years, which helped bolster the grant proposal. 

鈥淚 think that this work enhanced our proposal. I also believe that 鲍鱼tv鈥檚 new Global and National Security Institute (GNSI), led by someone of General Frank McKenzie鈥檚 caliber, has put 鲍鱼tv on the map in this area,鈥� Alexopoulos said. 鈥淕eneral McKenzie wrote a letter in support of the Minerva grant and is an important advocate for 鲍鱼tv鈥檚 diverse research initiatives in the area of national security, broadly understood.鈥� 

Alexopoulos believes it is critical that academics are included in discussions related to national security. 

鈥淣ational security problems are too large and complex for one group to tackle alone. I think that it鈥檚 important to include diverse perspectives, training, and expertise from both government and academia. We all benefit from shared knowledge and research.鈥� 

鈥淢y hope is that the research produced by this grant will serve U.S. policymakers by improving their understanding of this global problem and providing new insight and foreign policy options,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he goal of the Minerva Research Initiative, according to its website, 鈥榠s鈥痶o improve DoD鈥檚 basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S.鈥� This is what I hope our research achieves.鈥�