VMU Summer School Discussed Russian-European Relationship
The 11th Summer School of Baltic Practice 2011 was held in Kaunas on 31 July – 7 August. The conference was organized by VMU Faculty of Political Sciences and Diplomacy and the National Research University – Higher School of Economics (Russia). Russia and Europe in Global Networks was the theme of the conference this year.
Baltic Practice is an international research project devoted to Russian-European relationship that had evolved from Summer Schools, organized for more than a decade by the Public Policy Department of Higher School of Economics, with the first school in 2001.
Each summer Baltic Practice is organized in different European country. It was held in Sweden in 2008, Belgium in 2009 and Norway in 2010. This year, experts from various foreign countries (Austria, Italy, Russia and Netherlands) took part in the conference in Kaunas and shared their experience.
In 2011, Baltic Practice summer seminars had the same core principle: creative interaction of academic researchers, experts-practitioners and citizens activists – in order to develop arguments in search for decision to complex problems in Russian-European relationship.
2011 research topics:
1. Local Governance (Leaders: Gerhard Ermisher (Austria), Oxana Chernenko (Russia), Saulius Pivoras (Lithuania));
2. Human rights & Global Democracy (Leaders: Dmitriy Zaytcev (Russia), Simon Matthijssen (Netherlands), Marco Balboni (Italy));
3. Networked Economy (Leaders: Alexey Belyanin (Russia), Kristina Juraitė (Lithuania), Vytautas Liesionis (Lithuania));
4. Soft Law: Regulation and Self-regulation (Leaders: Yury Fogelson (Russia), Vytautas Liesionis (Lithuania));
5. European Cultural Landscape (Leaders: Mindaugas Kavaliauskas (Lithuania), Leonidas Donskis (Lithuania), Ruben Sergeev (Russia)).
Each year public debates are held during the conference. This time the topic for debates was Democracy networks effectiveness. Which of them are more effective: global or local? Debates were held at Vytautas Magnus University on 5 August.
More information about the project Baltic Practice is available here.
You are welcome to view photo report by Alvydas Vaitkevičius (a.vaitkevicius@vkt.vdu.lt).
