Rafik Usmanov: “We Keep Conducting Studies on Geopolitical Processes in Greater Caspian Region”

The Department of Social, Political and Economic Research of Eurasia & Orient has been functioning at ASU for more than two years. Over this period, the structural unit has made significant progress in all areas of its activities.

The department mission is to favour and participate in sociopolitical and economic research, scientific, educational and publishing activities, international cooperation with the Caspian states’ universities (including Eurasian and Eastern universities).

scientific school foundation is being formed through various activities, each of them is coordinated by one of the leading researchers of Astrakhan State University. This work is carried out under close cooperation with the ASU Institute of Southern Russia & Northern Caspian Region Issues Research, headed by Prof. Anna Romanova.

The department shifted a few of their projects to the online format promptly under difficult conditions of the COVID pandemic. In particular, they are working on organizing the online work of the Caspian International Discussion Club: last year, the round tables, involving leading university, were held as online conferences.

“In our long-term planning, we pay attention to the involvement of scientists from allied departments (philosophy, history, information security and digital technology, ecology and natural resource management, international law, etc.), creation of concepts and programmes of comprehensive research. We are also going to organize a Caspian scientific expert analytics centre at our department on the basis of our partnership with Caspian Bulletin, a research and information website. This expert analytics centre will become a platform for studying political, socioeconomic and cultural processes in the Caspian region,” says Rafik Usmanov.