Items for a Common Agenda
On August 2nd an opening ceremony of the 10th international summer school Baltic Practice took place in Oslo. Nina Belyaeva, Academic Supervisor of the School, told us about the specifics of this year's event.
— Nina, this Baltic Practice is the tenth. Do the participants feel like heroes of the anniversary?
— Yes, this is a real celebration for us. We are proud that this year the School is taking place for the tenth time: in our view, it proves that it's in demand, it demonstrates the viability of this project and the topicality of the discussed problems. And this is not only among young Russian researchers, but also among our international partners, European students, professors and experts.
In addition to this, the current school will be the third in a row in which is taking place with the participation of the Council of Europe, since it was included in the list of official events of the Three-Year Plan of cooperation between Russia and the Council of Europe. This shows that European organizations are interested in interaction such as joint education and research projects, mutual analytical and expert activities with leading universities and development of relations with Russia. Moreover, initially we planned to focus on the study of Russian interaction only with the Council of Europe, but colleagues from the Secretariat of the Council of Europe who are supervising our project suggested we broaden the topic of the Summer School which now has the following title: Russia's Engagement In European Organizations: Items For A Common Agenda. This was done to let the participants cover issues of Russia's interaction with different European bodies and to elaborate suggestions on the improvement of the mechanisms of such interaction.
— Specifically, how does the Council of Europe support the project?
— The Council of Europe gives us the opportunity to invite one of its experts to the Summer School, a specialist in one of the topics of the school workgroups. And these experts not only ‘greet' us or read separate lectures: they participate in the everyday work of the research groups, consult young researchers, hold evening discussions and training, and participate in final debates as members of the Grand Jury. For example, this year we shall have three representatives from the Council of Europe: Chuck Hirt, USA - Slovakia, who works in citizen participation and development of local communities, Gerhard Ermischer, Austria - Germany, an expert on analytic support of decisions made in European authorities, and Cyril Ritchie, Ireland - Switzerland, an expert on the development of democratic institutions, citizen society and the legal status of citizen organizations in the countries of the Council of Europe. Many experts, after visiting the School once, become its permanent partners. For example, Chuck Hirt, leader of the Central and Eastern European Citizens Network, is not only participating in our summer programme for the third time, but is giving consultation support to our groups all year round, and Gerhard Ermischer works with us on the international research project Ethics of Expert Activity, which is implemented under the Committee on Science, Culture and Education of the Conference of International NGOs under the Council of Europe. So, the international ties we establish through the Council of Europe turn out to be strong and long lasting.
Apart from the representatives from the Council of Europe, more our partners will participate in the Baltic Practice as international experts. For example - Ana Perona-Fjeldstad from the European Wergeland Centre, one of the largest European resource centers on the education in human rights and democracy, and Carolina Ditlev-Simonsen from the Norwegian School of Management.
— What students came this year to Baltic Practice in Oslo? Are they only from the HSE?
— Baltic Practice is one of the HSE brands, and that's why HSE students are still the majority of participants, but we always make each school available for students from all of Russia. This year students from Kazan, Voronezh and Orel came to the Norwegian capital, as well as graduates of the Russian State University for the Humanities, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and our new strategic partner in Europe - the University of Bologna. And, of course, we are planning that in Oslo, Norwegian students and young researchers will also join us.
— How will the work of the Summer School be organized?
— This time we formed workgroups on ‘topics of the day' to make them as thematic as possible, in terms of practical interaction between Russia and Europe and to track the channels of this interaction. This means that we shall have a Day of Experts, a University Day, a Day of Citizen Participation, and a Human Rights Day. Matching workgroups and their leaders are responsible for the preparation of each day.
— Will your work involve the traditional lectures?
— A School is always a form of education, that's why leading HSE professors have prepared special lectures for us: Vladimir Zuev, Head of Department of International Economic Organizations and European Integration, will talk to us about the modern stage of interaction between the Russia and the Council of Europe, and Yury Fogelson, Professor at the Faculty of Law, will deliver a lecture on the specifics of contemporary understanding and application of law in Russia and EU countries. And I, as the leader of the group University as Res Publica, have prepared a lecture on the latest European research in this area: about the role of leading universities in the building of democratic culture and citizen consciousness, within the university as well as throughout the whole of society.
This topic - development of university culture as part of democratic culture - is in line with one of the strategic tasks of all our international Schools, which is to establish strong work contacts with leading European and world universities and for the HSE to join the ranks of such universities. We believe that this can be done only on the basis of understanding the role of a modern university within contemporary society, application of general standards of education and university autonomy as well as comprehension and practical implementation of all-European democratic values by all ‘inhabitants' of a university republic. To become part of the family of European universities, the HSE also has to become such ‘university res publica'.
Galina Petrenko
Photo by Shota Kakabadze