Today Georgia is facing an increasing risk of brain drain. In recent years, Georgia has been experiencing a brain drain, with an increasing number of skilled professionals, young workers, and students leaving the country in search of better economic opportunities and stability. Since independence, the outmigration of Georgians has been mostly driven by economic factors – jobs, higher wages, better working conditions, and career advancement opportunities abroad.

ISET’s track record in sending its graduates into prestigious jobs or Ph.D. programs speaks for itself, and these opportunities are major points of attraction for would-be ISETers. However, the benefits of becoming an ISET graduate are best demonstrated when members of its alumni return and connect with the next generations.

On December 5, the Effective Data Visualization workshop – which was hosted by ISET in collaboration with ForSet and DarkHorse Analytics of Canada – officially came to a close when an award ceremony was held for those participants whose academic performance, significant achievements in data-related economics subjects and outstanding motivation to build future careers in the data-driven economy were of the highest. The winning team received a prize worth 1000 lari.

ISET is pleased to announce that Irakli Shalikashvili (who graduated as part of the Class of 2015) was accepted with full university funding for the Economics Ph.D. program at the University of Notre Dame. Having worked for two years as a researcher at the ISET Policy Institute and subsequently as a lecturer, Irakli decided to continue his education abroad.

“You need to think carefully before you jump into this deep sea,” said Professor Daniel Levy at the very beginning of a presentation entitled “Ph.D. Studies – Who Is It For?”. While this statement sounded frightening to those who were planning to pursue a Ph.D. or other further studies, it appeared to be more bemusing for others who were not considering a career in academia.