Due to the current travel restrictions and health requirements worldwide, the second Regional Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) on „Globalising Eastern Europe – New Perspectives on Transregional Entanglements“ (for more information on this event see the Conference Website), originally planned for September 2020, in Leipzig, Germany in cooperation with EEGA, ZOiS and DGO, had to be postponed to 21 – 24 April 2021, keeping as much of its current programme set-up as possible.

On 16 September 2020, a small-scale event was organised in its place, discussing topical issues in a virtual panel discussion, and celebrating the approval and start of a second funding phase of EEGA with members, colleagues and cooperation partners.

The evening featured a two-part discussion on „Research under the Covid-19 condition – Eastern Europe as a Global Area“ with two rounds á 45 minutes each. The roundtables featured Gwendolyn Sasse (ZOiS), Judith Pallot (BASEES), Matthias Middell (EEGA), Gabriele Freitag (DGO), Réka Krizmanics (Leipzig University), and Stefan Rohdewald (UL) who discussed firstly, research questions that arise because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and secondly, impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on practicalities of empirical research. In the conversation they tackled broader questions regarding the global entanglements the pandemic has demonstrated, and ruptures that have shown themselves more brazenly than before, and they also addressed the practical effects on teaching and empirical research.