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Regular version of the site

Events - 2018

 On December 13, 2018, the Institute for Social Policy held a scientific seminar on the topic “Digital public space and new ways of disseminating information”

The seminar moderated by Alexander Lutsenko (LIERR, EHESS) heard a presentation by Dr. Dominique Cardon, Professor of sociology at the Institute Sciences Po (Paris), Director of the Laboratory Médialab.

While at first perceived as a space of political emancipation, the web is now considered a danger to public life. Topics like fake-news, trolls, filter bubbles, and polarization of the public space have become important issues. The digital space is described as an unregulated market of information, controlled by the algorithms of powerful internet actors. In my speech I would like to show how the social sciences can use digital methods to understand informational practices on the internet and the new ways of disseminating digital information. The central argument will be that, despite having been drastically altered by new web practices, the digital public sphere continues to be governed by structural constraints linked to the issues of popularity and authoritativeness of information sources. By referring to research on the digital media in France, we will try to draw a picture of the new architecture of the informational ecosystem.

 


On November 20, 2018 the Institute of Social Policy held the seminar ‘The Modelling of Russian Pension System Scenarios’.

The seminar moderated by Oksana Sinyavskaya, Deputy Director of the Institute, heard Dmitry Pomazkin, Leading Expert of the Center for Comprehensive Social Policy Studies, and Evgeni YakushevExecutive director JSC NPF “SAFMAR”, who presented the forecasts of possible pension reforms in Russia: the increasing of retirement age, the abolishment of new early retirement schemes, increased pension indexation, etc. The authors developed the practical tool for the evaluation of changes in various parameters of Russian pension system. The invited pannelists Yuri Gorlin, Deputy Director of the Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasts at the Russian Presidential Academy of national Economy and Public Administration 
Source : https://realnoevremya.com/articles/1980-is-raising-the-retirement-age-in-russia-inevitable
and Tatyana Omelchuk, Senior Research Fellow of the Analytical Center for Financial Studies of the Financial Research Institute, noted the importance of different demographic and macroeconomic scenario in the model, pointed out the differentiation of early retirement schemes in the context of new law on the increasing of retirement age. The participants also discussed the perspective ways of model developing (assumptions, scenario, estimation accuracy, etc. 


On November 14, 2018, the Institute for Social Policy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, the European Dialogue Expert Group, and the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Russia held the International Scientific Conference “Basic Income as a Prologue to Social Policy of the 21st Century”.

The Conference was inogurated by Lilia Ovcharova, HSE Vice Rector, Evgeny Gontmakher, Coordinating Board Member of the European Dialogue Expert Group, and Peer Teschendorf, Director of the German Friedrich EbertFoundation in Russia. The discussions were joined by Alexandra Levitskaya, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation.

The debate on basic income has a long history but it is only now, in the 21st century that this discussion has become more pragmatic. A number of countries including Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, etc. are piloting state-provided income for a range of social groups. Those experts who study unconditional income have already moved far away from a primitive understanding of this phenomenon as a guaranteed payment to all members of society regardless of the level of their income, employment, health, and other factors. Although important, this is not the only functional component of the emerging social system that is still taking shape under the impact of fundamental factors. Social inequality, which widens as the economy keeps growing, disruptive technologies, which tend to quickly change labor markets and the employment structure, and the ageing population as well as increasing life expectancy, must also be taken into account.

The programm is available on the link.

 


On October 2, 2018, the Institute for Social Policy held a scientific seminar on the topic “Healthy lifestyle in old age: barriers and opportunities”

The seminar moderated by Oksana Sinyavskaya, deputy director of the Institute, heard a presentation by Dr. Elena Selezneva, Senior Research Fellow of the Center for Comprehensive Social Policy Studies.

Good health is a prerequisite for active longevity. Process of ageing, life expectancy and well-being in old age are determined not only by access to medical services but also by health behavior. As compared with the peers in Europe, Russian elderly pay less attention to their health. The research is aimed of identifying barriers that hamper using health practices by elderly population in Russia. The cluster analysis conducted on the RLMS-HSE data has shown that more than half of older Russians (52.4%) adhere to a lifestyle characterized by rejection of both, destructive and preventive behavior. The other 47.6% are almost equally divided between these who actively strengthen their health, and those with bad habits. The regression analysis has indicated that income is the most important predictor of the healthy lifestyle, but its influence is contradictory. The barriers to adopting a healthy lifestyle also include:

·        family composition (elderly living with relatives care less about their health),

·        low level of education and lack of information,

·        prevention as an unpopular strategy,

·        underdeveloped health infrastructure.

 


On September 4, 2018, the Institute for Social Policy held a scientific seminar on the topic “Inequality and Welfare Dynamics in Russia during 1994-2015”

The seminar moderated by Alina I. Pishnyak, director of the center for studies of income and living standards, heard a presentation by Dr. Kseniya R. Abanokova, Junior Research Fellow of the Center for Comprehensive Social Policy Studies.

Russia offers the unique example of a leading centrally planned economy swiftly transforming itself into a market-oriented economy. A comprehensive study of inequality and mobility patterns for Russia using multiple rounds of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Surveys over the past two decades spanning this transformation was presented. Is was found rising income levels and decreasing inequality, with the latter mostly caused by pro-poor growth rather than redistribution. The poorest tercile experienced a growth rate of 476 percent over the past 20 years, which is ten times more (43 percent) than that of the richest tercile, leading to less long-term inequality than short-term inequality. It was also found that switching from a part-time job to a full-time job, or from a lower-skills job to a higher-skills job is statistically significantly associated with reducing downward mobility.
 


On June 28, 2018, the Institute for Social Policy held a scientific seminar on the topic “Study of structural imbalances of regional labor markets.”

The seminar heard a presentation by Sergey Smirnov, PhD, director of the Center for analysis of social programs and risks, and by Alexey Kapustin, PhD, chief analyst of this Center.

The issue mentioned above is one of the most important for predicting possible unemployment and developing retraining programs. The principal items discussed during this seminar are as follows:

·        What statistical sources can be used to study this issue?

·        Are there differences between the labor market tracked by the Federal Service for Labor and Employment and the labor market tracked by the Survey of Labor Force?

·        How big are the interregional differences?

·        What proposals can be made in the context of “policy implications”?

The presented paper was elaborated within the research project “Updating the model of the public employment service in various scenarios of economic development taking into account the characteristics of regional labor markets", held under the program of the CFI-2017 (Terms of reference-146).




On June 22, 2018, the Institute for Social Policy held a scientific seminar on the topic “Public social protection of elderly Russians in the field of health care: instruments and beneficiaries”

The seminar heard a presentation by Elena Gorina, PhD, senior research fellow at the Centre for Studies of Income and Living Standards of the Institute.

According to the Healthy Aging goals the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends to all the countries providing the universal health coverage of ageing populations in such a way that access to needed health services should not entail the risk of financial hardship. Social protection is important for ensuring this aspect of financial security.

At the workshop it was presented some preliminary findings of the research which primary question was if the social protection policy in Russia is aligned with the goals and recommendations of WHO concerning the health care for the elderly. From the Healthy Ageing perspective, it was discussed three issues:

-           how social protection should contribute to the health-related services’ and goods’ supply of the elderly;

-           in what extent the elderly Russians have access to the goods and services which can directly help maintain and reverse losses in intrinsic capacity and increase functional ability;

-           what instruments of public social protection in Russia are aimed to facilitate the access to and to meet the elderly’s demand for the health-related goods and services and how they and their beneficiaries vary across Russian regions.

 


On June 19-20, 2018, over 20 researchers from the Institute for Social Policy, HSE, took part in the training workshop “Analytical tools for poverty reduction programs and social policy objectives in the Russian Federation”

Lilia Ovcharova, Director of the Institute for Social Policy, HSE, and Aleksandra Posarac, Lead Economist at the World Bank, opened the workshop conducted by Ruslan Yemtsov, Lead Economist and Team Leader for Social Safety Nets in the World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice, conducted the workshop with the unevaluable help of Maria Nagernyak, Coordinator of social protection projects in Russia of the World Bank.

The new objectives to reduce poverty and to promote the welfare of the Russian population set higher requirements for the analytical tools of assessing the results of the social policy as a whole and the organization of the social support and service in particular. The new requirements demand to redefine existing paradigms and approaches to the social policy analysis and to implement up-to-date methods of social policy’s quality assessments. To achieve a leading edge level of program performance evaluation, we need to advance the analytical tools and enhance the knowledge and the competences of the analysts who provide objective result assessment and develop guidelines for the progress of the reforms. Among other goals should be a gradual revision of the legislative and methodological framework of providing social support to those in need.

During the workshop, the participants learned about the latest research methods and tools to evaluate social policy, found out about new ways of working with the international databases and carrying out benchmarking analyses, and discussed analytical assessment methods of poverty reduction policies. The workshop also presented the lessons learned from the attempts to improve the social support system aimed at reducing the risk of poverty and improving the welfare. Through the discussions and practical trainings, the experts of the World Bank and the Higher School of the Economics exchanged their experience of carrying out research programs, the data collection and analysis, and modeling social programs’ adaptation scenarios. They also covered the subject of organizing educational activities dedicated to various social policy issues such as prosperity promotion, improvement of the living conditions and enhancing health, longevity, and education. During the open debates, the workshop participants inspected their approaches to the analytical support of the decision-making process by analyzing the cases from the experience of several countries. The participants also shared their ideas on disseminating progressive approaches of social policy performance evaluation.

 


On June 5-9, 2018 a seminar for young researchers from Germany and Russia "Dialogue between Russian and German scientific schools. Topics, methods, theories, approaches" was held at the Center for Qualitative Research of the Institute for Social Policy of the Higher School of Economics.

At the seminar the research projects were presented by the participants. Young researchers discussed the methodology of their research and the first results. At the seminar, Dmitry Oparin made a presentation on "Muslim practices in Moscow".



On May 15, 2018, the Institute for Social Policy held a scientific seminar on the topic "Modern problems of preservation and use of cultural heritage: the formation of the cultural framework as a method of inclusion of heritage in modern economic reality (on the example of the Tyumen region)"

The seminar heard a presentation by Pavel Shulgin, PhD, director of the Centre for Regional Programs of Social and Cultural Development of the Institute.

Modern realities make it possible to set the following strategic objective: culture and cultural heritage represent a special economic resource which should provide the basis for economic specialization for a number of cities and territories, become one of the new impetus to the development of the regional socio-economic complex. The solution of this issue may be associated with forming a cultural framework of the region considered as a system of interrelated centers of cultural and tourist development of various ranks.

The conceptual approaches to forming the cultural framework on the example of the Tyumen region (an interesting region, underestimated in terms of its potential of culture and cultural heritage) are considered. The paper substantiates the construction of the region cultural framework with the allocation of the centers of the first rank (historical cities), second and third rank (up to small rural settlements). A possible "cultural specialization" of various nodes and sections of the frame is also traced.

Initial outputs of the project are examined. The entire project implementation is evaluated from the point of view of heritage preservation as well as in connection with an eventual shaping of a driver for socioeconomic development of some peripheral areas of the region. The project would include new investment proposals (up to two hundred investment projects) both for individual heritage sites (including hotel facilities, social and transport infrastructure, reviving traditional crafts and industries, restoring and adapting historical buildings for modern purposes) and for the integrated development of historical and cultural territories.


 


 

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