The University of Michigan has announced a $10 million gift to its International Institute from former U.S. ambassador to Slovakia Ronald Weiser and his wife to establish the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia.

The center will serve as an umbrella organization for the Center for Russian and East European Studies, the Center for European Studies-European Union Center, and the newly formed Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies. The gift also will fund graduate fellowships and the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies, who will have responsibility for directing the Center for Europe and Eurasia and the Center for Emerging Democracies.

Awarded as a part of UM's $2.5 billion Michigan Difference fundraising campaign, the gift will be matched by funds from the University President's Donor Challenge Fund, bringing the total earmarked for the center to $11.5 million.

According to Michael Kennedy, the first Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies, the university has already established partnerships with professors in Slovakia and will work, through the center, with nongovernmental organizations and governments to strengthen civil society. "[The gift] facilitates the connection between two great area studies traditions at UM in European and in Russian and East European studies," said Kennedy. "It also helps us to support student and faculty learning about emerging democracies in Europe and Eurasia in places such as Poland and the Czech Republic after communism or Germany and Spain after fascism. Through effective public dissemination and engagement, we also seek to inform prospective democratic transformations in other parts of the post-communist world."