The School of the Social Sciences is a semi-independent entity of the University of Georgia (UG) with a large pool of academic and policy professionals working in the broad spectrum of teaching and research areas. In particular, the school is actively engaged in organizing research, public and media activities that cover various policy matters relevant to Georgia’s security, South Caucasus, and post-soviet area.

In 2019 the school initiated the UG-Security Platform (UGSP), which serves as a general umbrella for security related research, teaching and public activities. As a key event of the UGSP the annual conference was introduced, titled in 2019 “Tracking Russian Influence in Post-Soviet Area”.

In 2020 the school hosted another conference “Georgia in the Russian and Western Military Prism – If or When?”, where number of prominent experts and academics from different think tanks, universities and research centers contributed to the general topic of discussion (please see under ugsp.ug.edu.ge).

In the UGSP framework, a project was additionally launched, in which the selected number of BA- and MA-level students from leading Georgian universities as well as young professionals working in security relevant state agencies, are invited to participate in crisis scenario exercise/simulation and undergo intensive phases of teaching and practicing. In 2020 the school completed the research project "Russian Economic Footprint and the Impact on Democratic Institutions in Georgia" published in Connections: The Quarterly Journal 19, no. 4 (2020): 39-58. This year the annual UGSP-conference (to be held in Sept.24) will focus on the topic of national resilience and lessons learned.