Course “Lobbying and Public Affairs” for magisters of RANEPA
25.02.2020
Director of the International Communications and CSR Practice at Baikal Communications Group Anastasia Tsvetkova read a course of lectures on GR and lobbyism at the English-language master’s programme of the Presidential academy, which will be repeated in 2020.
In October 2019, students of international English-language master’s programme of the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) of Ranepa undertook the course on learning methodology for promotion and defense of interests of businesses and non-profit sector in public authorities. The author’s course of Anastasia Tsvetkova was based on – diving students into concrete GR cases, built upon the practice and work experience of Baikal Communications Group and Lake Baikal Foundation. The background in consulting in the field of public diplomacy, public affairs and cooperation with government bodies, as well as building mechanisms for the functioning of the environmental NGO let the head of the course show theory in practical implementation. Within the course listeners of the programme of “Leadership and global competitiveness” (Global Leadership) and “Strategic communications: government and business” (Strategic Communications) of Presidential academy gained risk assessment skills, learned the bases of GR strategies’ elaboration, mastered the principles of mapping stakeholders for GR communications, investigated work instruments in GR realm, acquired knowledge of professional ethics.
During the course, meetings with the representatives of large companies and industry associations were organized for the students: practical cases were presented by the Head of Government and Public Affairs at Coca-Cola HBC Russia Vitaliy Zhigulin, by the Head of Corporate Relations of Diageo Dmitriy Petrov, by the Corporate Affairs Lead for Russia at Cargill Andrey Lyan, by the President of the National Association of Professional Collection Agencies Elman Mehdiyev, and by the Executive Director of IMEDA Association Vanin Sergey.
Following the results of the course, listeners highly appreciated the module and expressed a desire to deeply investigate the profession, considering the possibility of an internship in GR field.
“Baikal Communications Group has been developing its GR-school for several years: creating courses on relations with public authorities as academic and corporate programmes. We value the opportunity to participate in the training of qualified personnel and share the knowledge about the basis of civilized lobbying activities” – commented on the new program at Ranepa CEO of Baikal Communications Group Eduard Voytenko.