On February 10, 2017 the Moscow Arbitration Court has ended the lawsuit regarding the EUSP claim against Rosobrnadzor. Despite extensive debate the court did not support the argument of the University that on September 16, 2016 the EUSP has fulfilled the initial requirements in respect of the disputed issues (gym, certification, practicing teachers). The EUSP is preparing to appeal the decision.

An analytical report titled "Indicators of the Effectiveness of the European University at St. Petersburg and the Place of Non-State Research Universities in the National System of Higher Education" was published on January 31. The author of the report is Dr. Mikhail Sokolov, Candidate of Science in Sociology and currently a Professor at the EUSP Department of Political Science and Sociology. The original document is available online in Russian. We are presenting a brief summary below.

The Department of Economics of the European University at St. Petersburg is organizing a two-day international workshop on May 25–26, 2017. The aim of the workshop is to promote research in dynamic macroeconomics with a focus on agents' heterogeneity and income distribution.

A press conference on the latest developments around the European University at St. Petersburg was held on January 26. The press conference was attended by the EUSP Rector and member of the Presidential Council for Science and Education Oleg Kharkhordin, EUSP co-founder and professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Vakhtin, EUSP Vice-Rector for General Affairs Leonid Ravnushkin.

One of ECPR’s member institutions in the Russian Federation, the Department of Political Science and Sociology in the European University of St. Petersburg (EUSP), is currently at risk. Following a political complaint, the Ministry of Education’s inspectorate, Rosobrnadzor, has repeatedly claimed to have found violations of administrative regulations, including too low a percentage of faculty whose primary occupation is practical work in the field in which they teach – both in political science and sociology.

Starting in 2013 the EUSP has been developing a project to adjust the building it occupies since 1995 (the Palace of Kushelyov-Bezborodko on 3A, Gagarinskaia Street) for modern educational purposes.

A major campaign is currently underway to shut down low-performing educational institutions in Russia. The campaign’s own success, however, has been somewhat compromised as a result of its attempt to revoke the university's license.

The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), a nonprofit, non-political, scholarly society, the leading international organization dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Eastern Europe in regional and global contexts -published on its website words of support, wich are very important to the EUSP today. ASEEES Supports European University at St. Petersburg

The Order №3205-07, dated December 07, 2016 issued by the Federal Service for Supervision of Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor) “On the suspension of the educational license of the European University at St. Petersburg” has been suspended upon the decision (№ А40-235549/16-147-2076, dated December 13, 2016) of the Arbitration Court in Moscow.

In July 2016, the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation began a series of inspections of the European University at Saint Petersburg. The basis for the conducting of these inspections was an official complaint by the deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Vitaly Milonov, to which other citizens’ complaints were added later.

On October 28th, the Russian Academy of Sciences announced the results of a customary election of members and associate members at a general assembly. Mikhail Piotrovsky, co-founder and a chairman of the Board of Trustees of the European University at St. Petersburg as well as General Director of the Hermitage Museum, was elected as a member of the historical-philological division of the RAS, working specifically with history.

Anthony Marra is a young but already renowned American writer, the winner of a Whiting Award, Pushcart Prize, and the Narrative Prize. His debut novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, a story about Chechnya of the 90s, was highly acclaimed by U.S. critics, who compared it to works of Leo Tolstoy. The book became a bestseller and won the National Book Critics Circle’s inaugural John Leonard Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in fiction.

On September 14th-16th the Department of Anthropology at the European University at Saint-Petersburg held an interdisciplinary seminar for young scholars entitled “Theoretic-Methodological Approaches to the Study of Collective Social Memory and Individual Construction of Identity: A Dialogue between Russian and German Schools of Thought”. This seminar served as a continuation of another one which took place in November 2015 at Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz) entitled “Russian Culture - German Culture. The Concept of National Identity in Modern Humanitarian and Social Sciences”.

Nikolai Vakhtin (Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor at the European University at St. Petersburg, head of the program “Arctic Social Sciences”, Chief Research Fellow of the Institute for Linguistic Studies, and Assistant Editor of the journal “Anthropological Forum”) was recently elected as a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Congratulations!

ARTEMY MAGUN: Welcome to the European University at Saint-Petersburg. In case you haven’t been here recently, we are very happy to see you again. Today is Jean-Luc Nancy Day, which will consist of two parts: a lecture titled «God Without Confession and Profession»; and a round table discussion concerning “Gods of Material Society”.

Apurva Sanghi, the new World Bank’s Lead Economist for the Russian Federation, gave a talk at the European University at St. Petersburg, during which he presented the World Bank’s Russia Economic Report no. 36. The report consisted of three thematic sections: 1) the latest trends in economic development; 2) predictions concerning the development of Russia’s economy; and 3) the impact of fiscal policy on the allocation of income during times of economic expansion and recession.

ENERPO Research Center will hold the Clean Energy Forum – 2016.

The recent changes in the research funding field around the world has led many universities to increase their investments in the management of the research process. The number and variety of research support structures has increased and research administration has become the key mechanism for delivering research goals. Research administrators and managers are now very much sought after in higher education institutions across different countries. So what do exactly these people do?

Over the past decade the concept and development of smart cities has unfolded rapidly with many city administrations implementing smart city initiatives and strategies and a diverse ecology of companies and researchers producing and deploying smart city technologies. In contrast to those that seek to realise the benefits of a smart city vision, a number of critics have highlighted a number of shortcomings, challenges and risks with such endeavours.

Jeffrey Prater teaches in the Department of Music at Iowa State University. Besides that, he is a composer, conductor and author of more than 70 works in different genres, which are performed in the US and other countries. He is also well-known in Russia. richly Richly illustrated with musical examples, Prater’s bright lectures on the history of musical culture are always a huge success.