On January 29, ISET was pleased to host Prof. Michael Beenstock for a seminar workshop. Prof. Beenstock is the author of ten books on topics including time series and spatial econometrics, macroeconomics, the global economy, and economic development, as well as writing more than 100 refereed journal articles.

A decade after its founding, ISET celebrates its entry among the top 10% economic institutions worldwide doing research on CIS countries. In November 2018 IDEAS ranked ISET the 142nd place out of the 1448 economic institutions in its database doing research on CIS countries. IDEAS is an international database that monitors publications in all fields of economics and ranks economic institutions around the world according to the visibility of their research i.e. how many times their online articles are viewed and downloaded.

On December 5, ISET organized yet another informational tour for its BA students. This time students visited the FRIXX factory, during which they were introduced to the technical operations and business strategy of the company. They were welcomed by Giorgi Darakhvelidze, General Manager, and Mariam Gabatashvili, Commercial Manager, who gave them a factory tour and showed them how FRIXX potato chips are made.

On December 3, ISET BA students visited the Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC). Revaz Geradze, Deputy Director of the Natural Gas Department, introduced the students to the mission of the GNERC and gave a presentation about the Investments Appraisal Rule, the objective of which is to develop the main principles and criteria for drafting, submitting, evaluating, approving and monitoring the investment projects for tariff setting purposes with regards to the electricity and natural gas sectors.

As part of its MA in Economics program, ISET has launched a new Concentration in Modern Data Analysis (MDA), which is aimed at providing young professionals with expertise in data (including big data) management and analysis using modern analytical tools.