Learning Diplomacy

The School was run by Ryazan State University and the Gorchakov Foundation for Public Diplomacy. Any students studying International Relations and/or Foreign Policy were eligible to take part, and the School drew students from across the country. Among them were the contingent from BNRU, Alexandra Gaidai, Yekaterina Konovalova, Ivan Dedenev and Lilia Shubnaya. As well as gaining insight into the current hot topics in Diplomacy and International Relations, the teachers sought to focus on other issues, such as countering extremism, diplomatic etiquette, and conflict in the information space.
The teachers were mainly from the Foreign Ministry's Moscow State Institute of International Relations and their Diplomatic Academy, the Gorchakov Foundation's Armenian School for Public Diplomacy and the International Section of the Russian Union of Youth. The school looked to showcase the tools of diplomacy, demonstrating and using a variety of ways of sharing information and public debating. These included team building exercises, 'foresight', panel discussions, master classes, quizzes, case studies, video conferencing, and 'fishbowl' discussions. The conference calls involved Alexander Novikov, the Diplomatic Service Press Officer, and Marat Shafigullin, the President of the Eurasian Research Institute for the Developing World.
Julia Rokotyanskaya, Chair of Ryazan City Council, was on hand to present certificates to all of the participants.