One of the first things tourists in Georgia notice is how crazy that drive from the airport to the city is. Jumping red lights, breaking rules to take over the jeep in front, the Georgian taxi driver risks his (and not only his!) life to deliver his passenger to the destination. As a distraction from the dangerous ride, the driver might offer the famous “dzhigit” (a brave equestrian) joke: a dzhigit passes on the red light but stops on the green – in case another dzhigit is crossing the road.

On May 27-28, Along with APRC representatives and the ENPARD team at ISET Policy Institute, ISET students took part in a field trip to the western regions of Samegrelo, Guria, and Racha-Lechkhumi. They conducted interviews with cooperative members supported by ENPARD (European Neighborhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development), whose project is implemented by a CARE consortium in those regions, of which ISET is a participating member.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Georgian nation went through a process of rapid disinvestment and de-industrialization. It was forced to shut down industrial plants, sending scrap metal abroad, and workers into subsistence farming. Hunger has never become an issue thanks to the country’s moderate climate and good soil conditions, yet inequality and associated political pressures rapidly reached catastrophic dimensions, unleashing cycles of violence, undermining the political order, and inhibiting prospects of economic growth.

On 25 May 2016 ISET faculty member and head of the Macroeconomic Policy Research Center at ISET's Policy Institute, Dr. Yaroslava Babych, was an invited panel speaker at the conference on Industrial Policy for the Development of Georgia, organized by the Centre for Social Studies of Georgia.

On 21 April 2016, ISET hosted Maria De Paola from the University of Calabria, who presented a paper by Vincenzo Scoppa and De Paola herself, entitled 'Procrastination, Academic Success and the Effectiveness of a Remedial Program'.