Azerbaijan, like other former Soviet republics, has found it far easier to create new institutions for the future than to reform those inherited from the communist past.  Nowhere has this pattern been more obvious and the stakes greater than in the case of higher education.  Reforming existing educational institutions and especially their administrative culture has proved a daunting task, and creating new ones on the ground has been almost as difficult.  As a result, Baku as a matter of state policy has encouraged its young people to study abroad, thereby allowing such stu...

ASAIF, the Azerbaijani Students and Alumni International Forum, was established in 2010 to provide opportunities for interaction among and resources for support of young Azerbaijanis planning to study abroad, already doing or having already done so.  By pooling knowledge and efforts of these students and alumni, the organization aims to enhance networking among foreign-educated Azerbaijani youth, promote public diplomacy, and contribute to human capital development in Azerbaijan.  The last is especially important because human capital, the accumulation of knowledge and skills a...

IREX (www.irex.az) was formally established as a non-governmental organization in Azerbaijan in 1998, but has been facilitating exchanges between Azerbaijan and the US since 1968.  In the past five years alone, IREX has sent more than 150 teachers, scholars, NGO and business leaders, and students from Azerbaijan to the United States on US State Department-funded exchange programs.  Currently, IREX implements two exchange programs—the Global UGRAD program, and the Edmund S. Muskie graduate fellowship program—as well as the Azerbaijan New Media Program. All of IRE...