Opening of the International School of Young Scholars

Graduate students, PhD-candidates, young scholars from Lomonosov Moscow State University, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS, the Institute of Africa RAS and other leading academic centers participated in the School. Participants of the project were provided with a unique possibility to attend lectures and workshops of 15 leading Russian and 10 foreign experts from North America, West Europe, Middle East and North Africa, including specialists with a huge experience of a field work.

Andrey Kokoshin, Dean of the School of World Politics, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, opened the event with a presentation about the RSF project “Evolution of Leading International Actors' Approaches to Security-Development Nexus in the Context of Transformation of Global System: Analysis and Prognosis” in terms of which the School was organized. He also shared his view on the importance of research of sustainable and secure development cooperation in the Middle East. Vladimir Bartenev, the CSDS Director and Deputy Dean for Research, gave a report about directions of the Center’s scientific activities and its plans for the future.

First conceptual lecture of the School was dedicated to the theoretical and methodological aspects of interdependence problems of security and development in the context of mutual relations between the West and the East. Elena Glazunova, the CSDS Deputy Director, Leading Research Fellow at the School of World Politics, and Alexander Yakovlev, Professor at the Chair of Regional Factors in World Politics and Leading Research Fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies, presented basic concepts and main methodological approaches to the theoretical developmentalism.

Andrey Markov, Assistant Professor at the Chair of World Economy of the Faculty of Economics at the MSU, gave a second lecture “Political economy of processes of the international development cooperation”. Expert told participants about history and modern state of the IDC and pointed out main instruments of the development aid used by donor-states and international organizations including the World Bank.

Nikolay Plotnikov, Major General (Retd), Director of the Research and Analysis Center of the Institute of Oriental Studies, closed the first eventful day of the School with a workshop on writing analytical materials. This workshop helped participants of the School to prepare their own analytical notes for a hypothetical international organization with recommendations on long term policy in the sphere of sustainable development in the Middle East and North Africa region till the year 2035.