MIRI Story

How everything began

The Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) is a legally registered civil society organization based in Bratislava, representing the institutionalization of the former Bari-Global Network initiative.

BARI-Global Network was an international, multidisciplinary initiative aimed at critically assessing the governance and management of growing diversity in modern societies.

It was established under the leadership of Dr Svetluša Surová and other BIARI (Brown International Advanced Research Institutes) alumni and colleagues from around the world in 2016.

This global and multidisciplinary initiative received the BIARI Alumni Seed Award for the 2016-2017 period from Brown University, Providence, RI, US, for the project proposal “Governing Diversity in the Twenty-First Century. Quest for National Unity and Contested Accommodation of Minorities in the Heterogeneous States.”

As part of the project, the Bari-Global Network organized a workshop in 2017 on the topic "Governing Diversity in the 21st Century" at Comenius University in Bratislava, featuring prominent keynote speakers Dr Jennifer Jackson Preece (LSE, UK), Professor Siniša Malešević (UCD, Ireland), and Research Professor Daniele Conversi (EHU/UPV).

This workshop was funded by the BIARI Seed Grant from Brown University, RI, US, and was also supported by the project "National Minority Rights and Democratic Political Community: Practices of Non-Territorial/National-Cultural Autonomy in Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe" (2014-17), funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and the Embassy of Canada.

From initiative to think tank

Everything began at the BIARI programme

Everything began at the Ethnicity, Conflict, and Inequality in Global Perspective programme at Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI) in 2016 where core members of the BARI-Global Network Initiative later transformed into the Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) met. This programme was convened by the distinguished professors Glenn C. Loury, Ashutosh Varshney and Patricia Agupusi.

Dr Patricia Agupusi is a Senior Research Associate at the MIRI.
The other two MIRI's Senior Research Associates Dr Arsène Brice Bado and Dr Nnaoma Hyacinth Iwu participated in the programme and are BIARI 2016 Alumni.

Our Leader Dr Svetluša Surová

The Leader of the BARI-Global Network initiative and Founder and President of the Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) Dr Svetluša Surová was a BIARI 2016 alumna.

Dr Surová put together an international and multidisciplinary team and led the writing of a project proposal “Governing Diversity in the Twenty-First Century. Quest for National Unity and Contested Accommodation of Minorities in the Heterogeneous States” which received the BIARI Alumni Seed Award for the 2016-2017 period from Brown University, Providence, RI, US.

MIRI Team participation at ASN 2024

The Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) team has participated at the 28th ASN Annual World Convention from 16 to 18 May 2024, co-hosted by Harriman Institute at Columbia University, NYC, US.

Dr Svetluša Surová presented her work in the panel on Minority Rights in Central Europe on “We were like dogs locked in here”: dissenting voices from the quarantined Roma settlements during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia. As well, she chaired the panel on Minorities and Diasporas in the Balkans and Turkey.

A Book Talk

Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) organized a Book Talk on Good Jew, Bad Jew: Racism, anti-Semitism and the Assault on the Meaning with Professor Steven Friedman. Good Jew, Bad Jew is a critique by one of South Africa’s foremost political theorists of mainstream understandings of Jewishness. Steven Friedman offers a searing analysis of the weaponization of anti-Semitism in service of political objectives that support the Israeli state and global white supremacy. Looking specifically at how language is used to shape identities, Friedman uses many examples to illustrate how anyone who opposes the interests and policies of the Israeli state is increasingly defined as anti-Semitic.