Tamar Sulukhia, the ISET Director, and Gogita Todradze, the Director of GeoStat, have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the International School of Economics at TSU (ISET), ISET’s Policy Institute, and the National Statistics Office of Georgia.

Starting from October 26, the ISET Policy Institute team, in cooperation with the USAID Economic Governance Program, started an online training course in Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) for public servants. The aim of the training is to provide participants from the selected institutions a clear understanding of the purpose of RIA, its structure and implementation, and how it works within the context of Georgian. The course will also develop and strengthen the participants’ technical skills that are necessary to conduct standard RIAs in accordance with the RIA methodology approved by the Government of Georgia in January 2020. The training is organized around specific RIA steps, included practical group activities every week, and will last for a total of seven weeks.

ISET has broadened its international connections by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Clermont-Auvergne University, a leading public university in central France. The MOU will allow ISET students and faculty to visit and study in France, and – most exciting of all – includes a clause that provides for the future development of dual degrees to be granted from both universities.

In Avchala, in the middle of nowhere, you might be surprised to find the busy “Craftsmen’s City” or “Khelosnebis Kalaki” as it is called in Georgian. It is built on a 4-ha plot where there used to be a large carpet manufacturing plant in Soviet times, which vanished with the Soviet Union and turned into a concrete carcass surrounded by a swamp.

On November 20, the study “Mapping of Emerging and Potential Clusters in Georgia” carried out by the ISET Policy Institute in cooperation with local and international partners was presented at the stakeholder forum ‘Promoting a strong and competitive business in Georgia’ organized by the EU and the four UN agencies – UNDP, FAO, UNIDO, and IOM, under their joint effort for the strong and competitive private sector in Georgia.