Head of Department Professor V. Chuzhykov and Deputy Head of Department Associate Professor O. Fedirko attended the Jean Monnet Conference "EU Eastern Partnership - from Capacities to Excellence", held at the University of Latvia in Riga on June, 11-13, 2014.    

      The conference was held at a high executive level, and gathered representatives of 17 countries. Among the guests of honor at the University of Latvia, there were the EU representative in Latvia, Latvian representative at the NATO, Head of the EU Commission Directorate for Research, representatives of the embassies of the Baltic countries.    

    The reports of the participants centered around several major areas, namely: regional innovation policy; success factors and challenges of innovation activities in the Eastern Partnership; legal aspects of economic cooperation within the Eastern Partnership; Incentives for employment and regulation of international migration in the EU.

     Viktor Ivanovych Chuzhykov reported on "Methodology of post-Soviet regionalism: Ukrainian case", and caused great interest of the audience. Associate professor O.Fedirko focused in his presentation on the phenomenon of innovation waves inherent to regional innovation development in Ukraine.  

   Overall, the conference was a unique example of cross-cultural communication and effective business communication, as representatives of the Eastern Partnership quite clearly outlined the specifics of national and local models of innovation, focusing on their major achievements and problematic aspects, while representatives of the Member States focused on the existing and future projects to stimulate innovation exactly at the Eastern Partnership countries.