Starting from 2005, Georgia saw a rapid decline in tertiary gross enrollment. In a country where poverty reduction is a key priority and where labor market outcomes have not been particularly strong during the last decade, the decline in higher education enrollment might appear as an additional obstacle to human and economic development.

On February 18, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) lead economist for Central Asia and Georgia, Agris Preimanis, delivered two presentations at ISET titled: 1) “Oil-driven Russia downturn adds to weakness in EBRD economies” and 2) “Innovation in Transition”.

The post-communist world lost one of its greatest sons last week – a freedom fighter who devoted his life to the daunting task of cleansing Eastern Europe and Eurasia from the shackles of Soviet thinking and bureaucracy. Like Che Guevara before him, Big Kakha’s legacy transcends national borders. His crusade for liberty and human dignity took him in 2004 from Russia to Georgia, and – in the last year of his life – from Georgia to Ukraine.

In a sense, life was relatively simple back in the Soviet Union days. Consumers had few choices, and material aspirations were limited to the unholy trinity of “apartment, car, and dacha”. That said, homo Sovieticus spent enormous amounts of time and energy chasing material goods ranging from potatoes to nylon stockings and cars.

On September 22-26, 2014 researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) in Germany visited ISET in the framework of their research tour to Georgia. Several panel discussions and workshops were conducted with the goal to discuss current challenges of agriculture and rural development in transition countries.