About Us
Welcome to SIIGA, the Student Institute for International & Global Affairs!
SIIGA is an international, non-partisan, not-for-profit student think tank devoted to bringing young people’s policy ideas to the policy process. The driving force of SIIGA are students from diverse academic backgrounds at universities in the Balkans who are interested in current global issues of political, economic and humanitarian character. Working to advance youth empowerment, SIIGA is a medium for young people from the Balkans and beyond to voice and share their views on foreign policy matters, to engage in provocative debates with peers, and to make their ideas known to policy makers in the region.
In today’s fast-paced realities, it is becoming increasingly important to be tuned in and to have a global vision. No less urgent is the need to enhance the dialog between the youth in the Balkans, a region that shares not only close paths of development in the past, but also common values and challenges in the present. Its young people deserve to be given more opportunities to learn and to have a say so that they could make full use of their true abilities and potential. SIIGA understands those demands and serves both as a source of information and a forum for discussion in order to meet them.
SIIGA is dedicated to contributing to a comprehensive insight into the world of international and global affairs. To comply with this vision, SIIGA provides its members with access to an online database of global political, economic and social news and analyses. A central pillar of SIIGA’s work is the publishing of an online annual journal on foreign policy issues that compiles short papers by students and is distributed to academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and political bodies in the region. Our hope is to place the focus outside the Balkans, to increase interest in global issues, to promote greater communication between the youth in the region, to engage students in academic debates, to stimulate young people’s creativity, and to give their ideas a voice.
Inspired by students, SIIGA works for students. It is founded in 2008 by a modest team of undergraduates from Bulgaria and Serbia, who are grantees of the Open Society Institute's Undergraduate Exchange Program.
The Student Institute for International & Global Affairs thanks you for your interest in world issues and wishes you the best of luck in your personal and professional pursuits!
Have a voice!
