The Project on Ethnic Relations (PER), founded in 1991, closed in December 2012. PER was an international non-governmental organization with headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey and regional offices or representatives in Bulgaria, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Serbia. PER organized and conducted high-level dialogues and negotiations concerning the interethnic disputes and conflicts that followed the collapse of communism in Europe.
PER was an independent organization, working and consulting closely with officials from the Council of Europe, the European Union, NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), foreign governments and parliaments, political parties, universities and academic institutions, civic groups, and the U.S. Congress, Department of State, and National Security Council.
PER was supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Balkan Trust for Democracy, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Eurasia Foundation, the Alfred and Carol Moses Family Fund, the People Technology Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Starr Foundation, NCH Capital Inc., the Council of Europe, the Stability Pact for South East Europe, the governments of Great Britain, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, and Switzerland, the United States Department of State, and the United States Agency for International Development.
PER's digital and paper archives have been deposited at the Mudd Library of Princeton University in two collections: The Project on Ethnic Relations Records 1990-2016 (findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/MC249) and the Livia Plaks Papers 1991-2012 (findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/MC266)
PER has two successor organizations, the U.S.-based Council for Inclusive Governance (CIG) (http://www.cigonline.net) and the Roundtable on Ethnic Relations (RER) (https://ethnicrelations.ro/), based in Bucharest, Romania
The materials on this website, last updated in 2012, contain extensive records of the meetings, dialogues, and other activities carried out by PER . They are intended as a resource for historians, social scientists, and policy-makers.
PER had two presidents: Dr. Allen H. Kassof, from 1991-2005 (now Senior Consultant to RER) and Livia B. Plaks (deceased 2013) from 2005-2012, and two executive directors: Livia B. Plaks from 1994-2005 and Alex Roinishvili Grigorev (now president of CIG) 2006-2010.
For the time being Dr. Kassof can be reached at allen.kassof@per-usa.org.
This summary last updated June 2019.
