ONF experts discuss with regional media how journalists can counter financial pressure from local authorities
Experts from the ONF Centre for Legal Support of Journalists held a webinar, in which more than one hundred representatives of the regional and municipal media took part. Questions were addressed on legislative regulation of participation in bidding related to information coverage of the activity of authorities and real-life examples were used to explain how to counter the attempts of officials to use financial levers to apply pressure on the media. The experts noted that consideration of such complains would become one of the key areas of activity for the Centre.
Regional authorities do not engage much in regulatory impact assessment
More than one half of Russian regions are nominally engaged in the formation of the institution of regulatory impact assessment (RIA). Experts from the Regulatory Impact Assessment Centre at NRU HSE have revealed that assessment specialists have not undergone the requisite further training, analysis of the consequences of regulatory innovations for business and society are systematically overlooked and funds are allocated for pilot projects and training merely based on the leftover principle. That said, a number of regions are growth points for “smart regulation”.
RIA in St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region
On 5 September St Petersburg hosted a workshop titled Development of the institution of RIA in St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, which was attended by representatives of the regional authorities and business associations of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. Director of the RIA Centre at IPAMM NRU HSE Daniil TSYGANKOV addressed the workshop, paying particular attention to the fact that the Higher School of Economics now offers a full-fledged distance learning course in RIA (72 hours), to run from 23 September until 4 November 2013, and which will issue a state-endorsed certificate upon completion.
NRU HSE experts at the Open Government of the Penza Region
On Thursday 8 August 2013, the conference Open Government of Penza Region and Higher School of Economics was held at the Penza Region Government, chaired by Governor Vasily BOCHKAREV. The Higher School of Economics was represented at the economic forum by Vice Rector and Director of the Institute of Public and Municipal Management Andrei KLIMENKO and heads of the research divisions of NRU HSE: Director of the Research Centre of IPAMM Konstantin GOLOVSHCHINSKY, Director of the Institute of Economics of Energy and Utilities Viktor KOLESNIK, Deputy Director of the Institute for Public Resources Management Leonid BOGDANOV and head of the department of the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge Mikhail GOLAND.
IPAMM NRU HSE experts comment on the problem of regional differentiation
The vital issue, raised at the recent meeting of the Presidium of the State Council as to which system should be used to assess the work of regional heads and whether or not, to this end, a new "synthetic" indicator of "modernisation success of the regions" should be introduced, which, according to Dmitry Medvedev, would be linked with "the governor's personal success and with his ultimate fate", is a matter of concern for the vast minority of the population. That said, this minority is extremely influential: the governors themselves, Dmitry Medvedev and the current acting head of the Finance Ministry Anton Siluanov,' writes Kommersant Dengi in its article entitled Federation on Subsidies. The matter of regional differentiation that this article raises was the subject of comment by Nadezhda SIVASHEVA and Vladimir ELISEENKO, experts from the Centre for Regional Programmes to Enhance Public and Municipal Administration at IPAMM NRU HSE.