Chronology of Soviet area studies

1943 G. T. Robinson, director of the USSR division of OSS (Office of Strategic Services) came up with a Russian area-studies research agenda

1943-44 A Russian area program at Cornell University (6-week program)

1946 Establishment of the Russian Institute at Columbia University   

1948 Establishment of the Institute for Slavic Studies at UC Berkeley and the Russian Research Center at Harvard University

1947 "Joint Committee on Slavic Studies" appointed by ACLS and SSRC

1948 Establishment of the "American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies," to be renamed,starting from 2010, as the "Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies") The Refugee Interview Project begins by the Russian Research Center of Harvard University and the US Air Force

1952 Establishment of the Ford Foundation's Foreign Area Fellowship

1958 Title VI of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) The first US-Soviet exchange agreement administered by IUCTG (Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants), which was superceded in 1968 by IREX.

1968 Establishment of the "International Research and Exchanges Board" (IREX)

1974 Establishment of the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) Establishment of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies

1977 Establishment of the National Council for Soviet and East European Research (NCSEER) renamed the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research "The Berkeley-Duke Project on the Second Economy of the USSR"

1983 Title VIII ("The Soviet and East European Research and Training Act")

1987 Establishment of the American Council for Collaboration in Education and Language Study (ACCELS)

1991 National Security Education Act (NSEA)

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Interesting projects in Soviet area studies

The Harvard Refugee Interview Project (1948-1951): US Air Force and Harvard University's Russian Research Center http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/hpsss/about.html#about
The Soviet Interview Project (1980s): http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/08694
The Berkeley-Duke Project on the Second Economy of the USSR (1977-?):  http://econ.duke.edu/Papers/Treml.BDOP.html
The Soviet Elites Project (early 1990s): The Russian Academy of Sciences, and some Western scholars such as Stephen White