About project

The “Baltic Practice” project started in 2001 as a small Summer School, but now it is a major interdisciplinary research project where under-graduate, post-graduate students, and PhD students as well as professors from Higher School of Economics and other universities conduct research into Russian-European relations.

«Practice-2001” and the current “Baltic Practice” are basically two different projects. Back then it was a typical Summer School where students and professors could combine holidays with listening to the lectures or giving them, respectively. Nowadays we generate knowledge and involve people into research.

We have been following this path for the last 5 years. We’ve been putting more and more emphasis on research until we understood that we are not only listening to the scholars but also generate knowledge ourselves. Our Summer School has turned into a research project. It happened during the Summer School in Vitten, Germany. And since the essence of the project has changed, we’ve got to change the name, too. This is how the Russian-European Centre for interdisciplinary research has emerged.

We used to prepare collective final papers on the research groups’ topics. For example, a group does research into the development of banking in Kaliningrad region. There are around 15-20 people in the group, each of them writes different parts of the text, which the group academic supervisor and several most active participants (the so-called "Group Core”) prepare the final paper. As a result, we had scholarly works of good quality, but it was hard to determine the individual contribution of each participant. However, it is abnormal to have almost two dozens of co-authors for a scholarly paper, so we set a limit of up to three co-authors. Now there is no “group paper”, but rather a series of related papers from group participants.

Preparation to the conference is also done differently now. Earlier the participants had to submit an essay, a motivation letter, and some kind of abstract. For instance, the applicant could write two pages about how he or she likes the Bologna process and wants to contribute to it and join the group. No scholarly paper of any kind was required.

Starting from the School in Vitten, the situation has changed: all the participants had 60% of their papers done before the actual seminar.

The papers are prepared in advance now, and we have earned the right to call ourselves a research project. We do not just hang around the scholars - we collect the data, analyze it, suggest a hypothesis, and draw conclusions. The trip and the conference are only a part of the project now. The conference is a place for discussion, even a dispute, for final polishing of the paper, but the major bulk of work is done long before it.

Also we prefer students that are already at least in their second year and we involve PhD and Master students - they have a stronger motivation for research.

We concentrate on applied research. The papers should be useful rather than just a summary of existing work. From the very beginning of this project we have been aiming at addressing specific problems. Our working algorithm is to define the problem, to analyze it and too offer a solution.

Research requires an encouraging environment. Typical university timetable is not very suitable for scholarly work, because research is regarded as optional to the curriculum. It is not discouraged, of course, but it doesn’t receive much support either. Our project creates a research-friendly environment.

All questions and applications should be sent to: summerbaltika@gmail.com