Lasha Lanchava, a research fellow at ISET Policy Institute, published a new paper titled “No Evidence of Association between Toxoplasma Gondii Infection and Financial Risk-Taking in Females” in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. He co-authored a paper with Mr. Nave and Mr. Carlson – researchers from California Institute of Technology, Ms. Šebánková, and Jaroslav Flegr – of Charles University, and a leading scholar of adverse influences of Toxoplasma Gondii infection on human personality and behavior.

On the 21st of September, Salome Gelashvili, senior researcher at APRC, attended a workshop on the topic of “Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) of the M4P and Value Chain Projects supported by SDC in the South Caucasus” organized by the Swiss Cooperation Office for the South Caucasus.

ISET kicked off its 2015-16 school year this Monday, August 31 with an orientation session for incoming students. ISET faculty, staff, and researchers warmly greeted the students and gave them a sense of what they can expect out of their next two years of study. ISET Dean of Students, Sopha Gujabidze spoke about the program’s rigor, encouraging students to study hard in their time in the program, but also detailed the close-knit alumni community, and all of the former students’ impressive accomplishments.

Human capital is the biggest asset of each and every think tank. In securing reliable and high-quality researchers, think tanks compete with much more powerful competitors—i.e., governments, state agencies, private companies, banks, and consulting companies. The region’s think tanks, therefore, have to devise special motivation strategies to retain existing staff and attract new talented individuals to opt for this career.

In the frames of the memorandum of understanding between ISET Policy Institute and the Business Association of Georgia (BAG), ISET-PI offered a compressed four-day training to the staff of the association. Senior researchers of the policy institute, Maya Grigolia, and Nino Doghonadze conducted the training in macroeconomics 101.