In the beginning of the course the understanding about theoretical approaches to internationalization is created. Both motives for internationalization and potential problems are identified. Different examples of successful Asian internationalizers are provided. The course also covers the perspective of companies seeking to expand their operations to Asia both via exports and foreign direct investments.

Drinks and health is a subject which systematically introduces the students with knowledge of the biochemical composition of drinks and their impacts to the consumer`s health. The drinks are often without necessary attention in our everyday nutrition, although they furnish us with nutrients, food energy and bioactive compounds. The advantages and disadvantages of milk and fermented milk beverages, mineral waters, soft drinks, juices, coffee, cacao and tea, bouillon, beer, cider, wine and alcohol are analysed. This course is biochemistry and medicine-based subject. To get closer to this goals the training programme involves: a) interpreting everyday objects/ situations (drinks commertially or otherwise available) from the point of view of biochemical information (e.g. to list the ingredients from a drink´s lable or producers sources and to analyze them biochemically – as a team work); b) reading sample materials about selected drinks; c)performing an individual referative work on a drink; d) commenting/ analyzing fellow-students referative works; e) performing a test. The course corresponds to 40 hours work so it is not a big course and adding the tasks would only lead to stress about shortage of time – so we concentrate mainly on the health issues of phenolic compounds of drinks, artefitial sweeteners in drinks, additives and preservatives in drinks, possible sources of allergy and intolerance in drinks together with the benefitial effects.

This course will overview recent developments in the realm of digital governance. It aims to provide a theoretical foundation for the analysis of practical cases. The course outlines technical solutions such as cloud services, online platforms, geographic information systems, internet of things, and digital twins. It will dive into digital governance in web, mobile, and hybrid online-offline contexts. It will look into such gov tech as e-health, e-public finance, digital-powered law enforcement, and smart cities. We will familiarise with the principles of government transparency via open data platforms and government accountability via such digital tools as e-tracker, e-audit, and e-oversight. We will devote special attention to big data and predictive analytics, machine learning and large language models as pioneering efforts to introduce artificial intelligence to governance. We will critically assess the potential of these technologies to reform and to disrupt public administration. We will examine digital government and smart city cases of Estonia, Ukraine, and Nordic countries. Also, we will investigate the extreme cases of digital autocracies. In sum, the course will help navigate e-governance as a citizen and establish a basis for scientific, policy-oriented, or business professional paths in digital governance.

The course covers the key political, economic and security issues of the EU-Russia relations against a broad empirical background of official documents and wider public debates. It discusses the actors' identities, history of EU-Russia relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union, institutional frameworks, bilateral as well as multilateral, issues of path-dependence in the lead-up to the 2014 crisis and the main items on the current agenda. The latter include the sanctions, security, memory, trade and energy, and people-to-people contacts. During the seminar sessions, the discussion is organised around contemporary sources representing the controversies that defined the parties' standing and the political outcomes.

Course description. Since the launch of the euro in the late-1990s, the EU's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has represented a stark symmetry between the fully integrated "monetary" arm and only partially integrated "economic" arm. The incomplete nature of the EMU was fully exposed by the sovereign debt crisis of 2010, entailing enforced macro-economic, fiscal (but also social) governance frameworks, new financial assistance funds, as well as significant advances in coordinating financial and capital markets. However, the Covid-19 crisis and the EU's responses to it - effectively endowing the European Commission with fiscal and debt-raising powers - have marked a major leap forward in EU economic governance, effectively closing the long-standing asymmetry between monetary and fiscal realms. This MA course has two basic objectives. First, to provide an overview of the development of the EU's fiscal policy, monetary policy, and financial and capital market regulation before and after the Sovereign Debt Crisis. Second, to provide a topical perspective on the ongoing changes in EU economic governance in the current polycrisis, as related to COVID-19, climate change and Russia's war in Ukraine. The course will provide a broad overview of these policy developments and explain how they are shaped by national and supranational actors and institutions. The course will be of high relevance to MA students of political science, economics and law.

The course focuses on the transition processes, history of modernisation, globalisation, regionalisation and conditionality connected to the EU enlargement process and neighbourhood policy. It also reflects on the challenges of competing regionalisms in the European and Eurasian contexts. The course conceptually and analytically discusses the perspectives, problems and challenges of current and prospective candidate states as well as neighbourhood countries. It relates the latter to the zero-sum game dynamics of competing regionalisms, by looking at specific cases. In particular, the course will focus on the history of the enlargement process; theories, processes, and institutional & legal framework of the EU neighbourhood policy (with a focus on Eastern Partnership); case studies of success and failure of competing regionalisms; and recent developments and potential future trajectories.