The Summer Schools are being held for the first time this year, and are part of the broader PolitiQ educational initiative, which aims to improve the reputation of the Russian school of political science. Political Sciences students in their second year at MSU and above are eligible to take part in the programme.
The programme is funded by the ISTOKI Endowment Fund.
The first ever selection round awarded four winning entrants grants to cover their participation in the summer school. The four winners were MSU students from Moscow, Ulan-Ude, Nizhny Novgorod, and Astrakhan. Two of them have started studying at Sciences Po in Paris, France, one is at the London School of Economics, and the fourth is at Singapore National University.
‘One of the key goals of our programme is to attract talented young people to political sciences and offer them broad opportunities to develop their abilities,’ Vladimir Yakunin said. ‘The students who take part in our summer schools receive an outstanding opportunity to study, for free, in some of the world’s leading universities. This will enable them not only to experience new approaches to research, but also to gain experience and make lasting contacts in their field. Of course, we hope that they will then choose to continue their studies at MSU. Now, at the Faculty of State Governance, we plan to open an English-language taught MA programme developed with both Russian and international students, especially those from the CIS, in mind.’
Member of the Council of Young Researchers at the MSU Political Sciences Faculty, Intigam Mamedov is working on a dissertation on the Caspian region. He is currently at Singapore National University on a ‘Methodology of Political Analysis’ course as part of the Summer School. ‘The main reason I wanted to participate in this programme was to further enhance my skills in empirical research methods,’ Intigam said. ‘The course is held in English, and that also helps me improve my English-language skills and expands the range of international literature I am able to use in my research.’
In addition to these Summer Schools for MSU students, student exchange programmes will be developed in 2016-2017 to attract international students to MSU and other leading Russian universities.