The article reviews the academic contribution of Russian historian and diplomat Nikolay Charykov (1855-1930) to our understanding of the reforms by Peter the Great. In his research, Nikolay Charykov argues that the reforms did not result in a radical break with previous Russia's historical path. He stresses that the cultivation of scientific knowledge and labor skills necessary for modernization started in Russia long before Peter the Great because Russia was part of a European system even before Peter the Great. For example, the author points to Ivan III's marriage to Zoe Palaiologina (Sophia Palaiologina); the employment of captive Livonians by Ivan IV; sending Russian youth to study at Western European universities; Boris Godunov's plans to form a European league of Christian sovereigns. Nikolay Charykov focuses in his studies on the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, pointing to his plans to increase the involvement of Westerners in various spheres of life in Russia. Moreover, Nikolay Charykov shows that the personality of the future Emperor was formed under the influence of Russia's increasing interaction with European countries. He concludes that the development of Russia before Peter led to Peter's reforms. He saw the struggle between Sophia and Peter as an interpersonal struggle for power, which in no way violated the primary trend of Russia's development. Peter's reforms became a logical and natural consequence of the previous processes. The merit of Peter was that he successfully continued the previously started transformations by adding to them his character and thinking, which led to the birth of the Russian Empire.

Efficient organization of public-private partnership (PPP) has become especially urgent amid the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and numerous sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation. The importance of this issue stems from the fact that the Russian economy has found itself at a crossing of at least two fundamental systemic transformations.

On the one hand, all economic systems of the world, to a greater or lesser degree, have experienced limits to the development of a static economy. On the other hand, companies that have suffered the most from sanctions against Russia have leading-edge practices in organizing and participating in technological platforms and corporate ecosystems using B2C and B2B strategies. Therefore, a qualitative change in the economy to resolve the societal crisis is a universal challenge, and Russia is not the only country facing it.

In this light, the transformation of the static economic system into a dynamic one moves up the agenda. Such change usually starts with building new structural ties by sustainable big companies that must conform to the dynamic reality. Dynamics for an economy mean new development perspectives and enormous expansion potential. This new status bases on the principles of human-centrism and an important new role for talented, intellectually autonomous individuals in corporate and other structures. This article outlines the author's interdisciplinary perspective on innovative and emerging evaluation knowledge and practice related to the environment, natural resources management, climate change, and development. In recent years, evaluation has emerged as an increasingly important function in determining the worth and value of development interventions in terms of their relevance, impact, performance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.

We aspire to prove that PPP for Russia, following the pandemic-caused economic crisis and under Western sanctions, may perform a fundamental mission far more important than participation in producing public goods for budget funds. It could help the country to ensure a leap in its economy from statics to dynamics.

This leap and respective transformations in corporate and social structures based on the human-centric principles could bring a multiplicative effect to the economy, quality of life, public policy, governance, and other spheres.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) constitute a set of ambitious steps adopted to transform our world. They comprehensively outline action plans for social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and economic development. Achieving the SDGs by 2030 requires an unusual combination of action and partnership between various governmental and non-governmental organizations, development partners, the private sector, and civil society. While decision-makers are responsible for prioritizing and implementing strategies to ensure the various strategies embedded in the SDGs come to fruition, the private sector and civil society also play leading roles in implementing national plans. Local content policies (LCPs) are strategic policy frameworks focusing on diversification and technologically-led transformation in resourcerich economies. They are generally expressed through laws compelling stakeholders to procure services, create jobs within the host nation, and transfer technology. This paper stipulates that LCPs must be linked to the SDGs as this will help resource-rich countries fully benefit from their natural resources.

The article studies how a discursive contestation among the EU institutions (the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union) of the concept of "strategic sovereignty" ("strategic autonomy") affects the institutional balance among them. Institutional balance is a dynamic process in which institutions challenge each other's authority. This process is conceptualized in the article in terms of discursive neo-institutionalism as a coordinative discourse, which forms, challenges and justifies the idea of “strategic sovereignty”. The article uses the cases of the EU industrial, trade policy, and the common security and defense policy to demonstrate the changing institutional balance.
The results of the study show that the main institutional beneficiary of "strategic sovereignty" is the European Commission. Most likely, there will be a strengthening of the Council, which reserves broad powers in crisis management and foreign policy. The position of the Parliament is ambivalent: although the growth of its institutional weight is possible, it will depend both on the Parliament’s own initiatives and on whether the European Commission will succeed at communitarizing new issues and spheres. The findings demonstrate that under crisis, the institutional balance of the EU will continue to tilt in favor of the supranational level of regulation.

Just like in the Cold War, space has re-emerged as an arena of international rivalry. However, this time, the space industry sees new actors partaking in the race to the top, as the competition is not just between states; commercial players are increasingly taking the field. The latter is not limited to established large companies but includes small and medium-sized innovative enterprises, forming the so-called New Space. Among the countries facing such a multifaceted challenge is India, whose space industry is pursuing a catch-up strategy in many respects and has only recently stepped up the growth of the commercial space segment.

Considering the key importance of the public support for this segment, the article discusses the main trends, factors, and specifics of the Indian New Space policy. We use comparative analysis to assess the current state and prospects of the industry and its possible implications for the Indian global positions.
The study shows that New Delhi aims to embrace new realities amidst ambitious economic targets, social challenges, and growing geopolitical tensions with China, with the pandemic acting as a catalyst. Thanks to innovative measures, India has already become one of the central space players, but it still falls short of leadership in the New Space due to its resourceconstrained and state-centered course. Nevertheless, although its New Space is still at its infant stage, the future looks promising. However, the success of the Indian astropreneurs will also depend on the rise of efficiency of the national policies – a process likely to happen due to internal and global challenges.

The article explores the prospects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for developing the Balochistan province of Pakistan. Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan, full of natural resources; it has geostrategic importance due to its location, long coastal line, Gwadar port, and the recently launched CPEC project. It remains an economically underdeveloped and socially and politically marginalized province, facing extensive poverty and lack of economic opportunities despite the enormous economic potential, separatism movements, terrorism, and severe clashes with the federal government over its financial share in the state's divisible pool and natural resources found in the province. Economic backwardness is one of the main reasons behind the critical challenges in the province. In this regard, it is essential to analyze the prospects of CPEC projects for the province's economic, social, and political redevelopment and how CPEC can improve the security situation and resolve the separatist movements in the province. CPEC provides potential opportunities for improving the economic and security situation in the province and the region on the whole, as it brings a huge amount of Chinese foreign direct investment to the province, creates jobs, encourages infrastructure development, establishes special economic zones, and turns the province into a corridor of regional trade connecting it with other economies. The article substantiates that CPEC has prospects to cool down the Baloch uprising, bring peace, prosperity, and stability, solve the economic crises, decrease poverty and improve the country's living conditions and region.

The article traces the institutional and political evolution of the US implementing its concept of international religious freedom from 1998 to 2020. The concept became popular after the end of the Cold War when the defense of religion against socialistatheist ideas had lost its relevance due to political (the collapse of the Eastern bloc) and cultural (the growing importance of religion in many non-Western countries of the world) reasons. The article starts by reviewing the history of the emergence and development of the institutional infrastructure (legal acts, administrative entities, public and political organizations, think tanks, expert platforms, interdepartmental coordination formats, human rights projects, funding and grant programs, and new international organizations) that supported the US foreign policy advancing international religious freedom. The article divides the reconstruction of this process into two periods formed by adopting two acts: in 1998 — the International Religious Freedom Act, and in 2016 — the amendment to this Act named after congressman Frank Wolf. The study concludes that over the past twenty years, religion has finally developed as an independent track of the US foreign policy, although it has been developing inconsistently and has undergone repeated corrections. The concept of international religious freedom has become the ideational basis of this track, while the extensive institutional and political infrastructure serves as its apparatus. More than 80 percent of the world's population encounters religious persecution. It legitimizes the concept, which encourages widespread support for religious minorities as opposed to the religious majority, and opens the way for the US to build sustainable ties with religious communities and their leaders worldwide, allowing them to influence political processes in different regions. The US has recently promoted the integration of this policy track into international institutions, establishing the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance.

The pandemic has produced the global COVID-19 vaccine market with various stakeholders acting in their economic self-interest. At the same time, some governments use vaccines for pursuing national interests and expanding their international influence. Using scientific works on the topic and documents from WHO, GAVI, WTO, IMF, government documents and think tank reports, the author analyzes vaccine diplomacy as a branch of medical diplomacy and identifies changes that occur under pandemic impact. The article examines the current policy of China, as it has achieved the most notable success in medical services export, primarily to developing countries, and Chinese pharmaceutical companies play a prominent role in the global vaccine market. It raises serious concerns of the West, which accuses Beijing of using coronacrisis to establish a new (China-centric) world order. It is concluded that government capacity to protect public health and control epidemic spread is among the significant criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of State policy, and its own vaccine industry begins to be regarded as an important element of national security. There is also a considerable increase in the role of healthcare in foreign policy of a number of States using medical and vaccine diplomacies as a means of achieving political goals. COVID-19 vaccines are becoming a strategic asset that affects the country’s position on the world stage and generates a new field of geopolitical rivalry. But at the same time, vaccine diplomacy could serve as a dialogue platform in cases when interstate relations are in a deep crisis. And it may lead to awareness of the need to train specialists in the field of medical diplomacy.

The research deals with a relatively recent phenomenon of science diplomacy as a tool of Russian foreign policy. One of the science diplomacy tracks is 'diplomacy for science. The article investigates this track’s macroand micro-level practices to assess the overall effectiveness of Russian science diplomacy. The authors conducted an indepth analysis of primary sources and semi-structured interviews with academics and diplomats. They conclude that at the micro-level, 'diplomacy for science' is hindered by a lack of legal information on travel rules, poor consolidation of the ‘research diaspora,' and the absence of a regulatory framework to identify those eligible for consular and diplomatic support. A distrust in communication between scholars and diplomats further aggravates the uneven support for scientists across Russian diplomatic missions. At the macro-level, the institutional framework of scientific cooperation between Russia and other states appears vague, featuring non-binding memoranda of understanding and very few detailed agreements.

Book review: Anagnostopoulou D., Skiadas D. 2022. Higher Education and Research in the European Union. Mobility Schemes, Social Rights and Youth Policies. Springer. 344 p.