Projects, Series, and Research Initiatives

Through various projects, we engage in original research, fieldwork, and publication that is designed to create new insights into contemporary debates around issues of gender and sexuality. Students, faculty, staff, and researchers collaborate to produce this research and disseminate the findings.

Each project has its own set of researchers, events, and outputs. The projects come together to help further the mission of the Center as well as shaping research and teaching on these topics within the university.

Current Projects:

The Impact of Community Empowerment on access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and services (including HIV) in line with the Sex Worker Implementation tool (SWIT) for female, male and transgender sex workers in Kyrgyzstan

This project is funded by Aids Fonds & Bridging the Gap, and focuses on working with sex worker communities in Kyrgyzstan to access sexual and reproductive health, rights, and services. This projects runs from February 2018 to February 2019.

Combatting culturally-endorsed sexual violence in Kyrgyzstan through innovative education and information technology

This project is funded by the World Bank and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative, and focuses on new educational practices and information technology and the role that these can play in understanding and preventing sexual violence in Kyrgyzstan, with a focus in Bishkek. This project runs from August 2017 to August 2019. 

• Update 1: First Steps!
• Update 2: The Curriculum Begins to Develop
• Update 3: Hackathon Introduction
• Update 4: Hackathon Day 1 Continues
• Update 5: Hackathon Day 2
• Update 6: Hackathon Day 3
• Update 7: Presentation by Open Line
• Update 8: Gender, Ethics, and the Politics of Violence Course
• Update 9: A New Semester Begins
• Update 10: Seminar with Public Union Kyrgyz Indigo
• Update 11: Dr Steve Roberts Lecture & Article Published at LSE Engenderings
• Update 12: Lecture Review by Daria Gavriushchenko
• Update 13: Neobis presents Aiymkana to Course
• Update 14: Graduating the First Student with a Minor in Gender Studies
• Year in Review Annual Report 2018
• Update 16: Presenting at Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference
• Update 17: Theories of Violence Course
• Update 18: Roundtable on Violence
• Update 19: Research on ‘Virginity for Sale’
• Update 20: Research on ‘Institutional Violence’
• Update 21: Forthcoming

Teaching Handbook: Poverty, Environment, and Gender

This project is funded by the UNDP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) in Kyrgyzstan. The teaching handbook will be a guide so that, with the book, faculty around the world can teach the Master’s level course ‘Poverty, Environment, and Gender’. The teaching handbook will utilize as its primary case, PEI’s work in Kyrgyzstan, supplementing this with various other cases and readings.

• Project Website

UNDP & UNEP Project: “Sustainable development: Environment and Gender Equality”

This project is from 2015, and is comprised of a teacher’s handbook and set of exercises. The above teacher’s handbook builds on the work completed in this project, both in content as well as form. Written for a Russian-speaking audience, the documents are only available at this time in Russian.

• Teacher’s Handbook: “Sustainable development: Environment and Gender Equality”
• Book of exercises “Sustainable Development: Environment and Gender Equality”