Foreign Affairs and Security is a relatively new field of expertise in the Baltic states. Under the USSR, the development of social sciences was highly centralised, and the option to study international relations or political science locally didn’t exist. Today, there are a dozen geopolitics-driven organisations in the Baltics and they are all based in the biggest cities: Kaunas, Riga, Tallinn, Tartu, and Vilnius. Whether state-funded or not, most of them conduct fairly independent research and are more than capable of contextualising their insights in the global security environment. Furthermore, recently, they have been expanding their interest. Some widen their territorial focus by encompassing new regions, such as South Asia or Eurasia; others engage in interdisciplinarity, combining security studies with other subjects, such as technology or communications. Each think tank description here includes some details on its founders and present financing, a few sentences on the scope of their activities, their most significant innovations and/or achievements; as well as links to their publications, organised events, and other productions in English.

Estonia

International Centre for Defence and Security is a state-funded policy research institute based in Tallinn. Active since 2006, it became the leading think-tank in the field after merging with the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute in 2018. The Centre employs around forty experts, and although its flagship events—such as the Lennart Meri Conference and Annual Baltic Conference on Defence—are centred around the Baltics, the scope of its research is not limited to the region. It publishes an Estonian language magazine Diplomaatia, and many publicly accessible English language reports on global and regional security.

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies is a branch of the publicly funded Tartu University. It carries the name of the Baron who founded the University in 1632. However, the institute itself took its present shape only after the fall of the Soviet Union. It blends conventional political science and area studies with research on trends in communication technologies. Expert groups, such as the Centre for Eurasian and Russian Studies or De Facto States Research Unit offer insightful and freely accessible reports on their web pages.