On December 15 the ISU International Institute of Economics and Linguistics held the All-Russian Conference “Major Trends in Urban Development: Economics, Social Capital and Place Branding”. The conference was organized by the Department of Social sciences and economics in collaboration with the Laboratory for urban development and social innovations at the ISU International Institute of Economics and Linguistics.

Researchers from Moscow, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk and Middlebury college took part in the conference. They discussed such issues as budget development prospects, characteristics of the agriculture sector in Eastern Siberia as well as approaches to place branding in the USA.

Maia Volchkevich, an associate professor of the Russian State University for the Humanities presented a report “Foreign Students’ Practices to Explore the Urban Space”. In her report Volchkevich emphasizes the fact that an attitude to the city is under the impact of the social success the person has managed to reach.

Alexey Kozmin, Irkutsk city mayor’s advisor and an expert in urban studies, made a presentation “City blocks in Irkutsk” that invited students to consider the urgent problems in city development.