News.

From 30.-31. March 2017 the spring seminar of Pärnu County’s Municipality Union took place. The central topic was the future cooperation between the municipalities of Pärnu County against the backdrop of losing the county government level and the assignments of new tasks to the local municipalities. The potential changes were...

Recently, the academic journal Sociální studia/Social Studies published a special issue on “Rural Sociology”. The volume gives an overview of recent studies in rural sociology, which cover different aspects of rurality and rural change. Via case studies in Estonia, Finland, the Czech Republic and Spain it shows the challenges that...

On the 31^st of May 2017 the spring seminar by the Union of Pärnu County  municipalities took place. The central topic of discussion was the  future collaboration of local municipalities in Pärnu County due to the  loss of the county government and the new responsibilities of the local  government units....

The consortium consisting of OÜ Geomedia, OÜ Cumulus Consulting and OÜ Change Partners implements a development program for local government leaders, which was commissioned by Enterprise Estonia (EAS). The objectives of the program are to increase the management and cooperation capacity of local government leaders in the course of the amalgamation reform and to support...

On 11^th of May 2017 the Information Day of Statistics Estonia focusing  on “Correct data collection starts at the local government units” took  place in Nordic Hotel Forum Tallinn. The presentations of the first  session focused on register-based population and dwelling censuses. Here  a central topic is the quality of...

Statistics Estonia published a compilation on “Regional Development in Estonia 2016”, which includes an article on “Competency-based assessment of training needs of local government employees” authored by Rivo Noorkõiv and Mari Nõmm. The article includes an extensive theoretical overview on the link between competence-based management and the organizational need to increase its capability through the...

In the framework of the RegPol^2 project a seminar took place in  Bekescsaba, Hungary from 29^th of May until 3^rd of June 2017. It  focused on regional development, peripheralization and the influential  factors for utilizing regional development potentials in different  countries in order to achieve proper development policies and residential wellbeing....

In the newspaper „One Mulgimaa“ („Üitsainus Mulgimaa“) an article was published by Rivo Noorkõiv, in which he discusses the name Mulgi municipality that was requested during the amalgamation of Abja, Halliste, Karksi municipality and Mõisaküla city. In the author’s opinion, it is not appropriate to use the cultural understanding of Mulgimaa for the administrative unit,...

Under the leadership of the Local Government in Keila Municipality on  the 8^th of June 2017 a conference took place in Laulasmaa focusing on  “Collaboration of Local Governments and Entrepreneurs: How to Achieve  more Prosperity and Economic Growth in Estonia”. At the center of the  debate was the possible collaboration...

On the 16th of December 2016 Geomedia PhD student Bianka Plüschke-Altof was invited to a Social Sciences colloquium at the Humboldt-University. Under the title „Re-inventing Setomaaa. The Challenges of Fighting Rural Stigmatization“ she introduced her first research results. On the case of Setomaa the presenter discussed the influence of spatial images on rural development in...