The Center for Policy Studies in Russia ( PIR Center ) is an independent nongovernmental organization founded in April 1994 and based in Moscow . The PIR Center carries out research, as well as educational, public awareness and publishing activities, and provides consulting services. The priority areas of the Center's research studies remain, from its founding to now, international security, arms (primarily nuclear) control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The first project of the PIR Center was the publication of the journal Yaderny Kontrol whose pilot issue came out in November 1994. By June 2003, the PIR Center published as many as 68 issues of the journal that still remains the 'business card' of the organization. The Center has more than 20 staff members working on 15 short- and long-term projects.
The PIR Center makes intensive efforts to involve young specialists in its work. The Center staff includes recent graduates of the top Russian higher education institutions, such as MGIMO and MEPhI. Their professional development, however, would be impossible without support and advice given by experienced senior colleagues: one of the founding fathers of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Doctor of History, Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary, Professor Roland Timerbaev; Doctor of Military Sciences, Lieutenant-General (retired) Vasily Lata; Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Major-General (retired) Vladimir Dvorkin.
The PIR Center has become a leading Russian nongovernmental research organization in the area of international security. In its day-to-day operations, the Center maintains close contacts with executive and legislative agencies. The Center receives considerable support from its Advisory Board that numbers over 70 individual and corporate members, including 6 Academicians, 4 Ambassadors, and 10 Doctors of Science. Since 1997, the PIR Center has been developing educational programs in the area of nonproliferation to establish in Russia a community of young specialists in this field. Under its educational projects, the Center closely interacts with the leading Russian higher education institutions: MGIMO, MEPhI, St. Petersburg State University , Tomsk Polytechnic University , and others. A special emphasis is put on the interaction with closed administrative-territorial entities: Sarov, Shezhinsk, Seversk, and Ozersk.
With the election of PIR Center director Vladimir Orlov in 2001 as a UN consultant on disarmament and nonproliferation education, the Center won international recognition in the sphere of education.
