News.

An international conference called “The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and topical legal and economic issues, including insolvency” was held between November 8-9, 2012. The second panel of the conference focused on the collaboration between public, private and the third sector as well as the cooperation networks in...

An estimated number of more than 5.000 officials work in local government service. Considering the requirement of each service position and the educational background of the officials, the objective of this work is to analyze, how critical and massive the future need for special training of local government officials related...

On May 30, 2012 Tartu Business Advisory Services organised a development day for the entrepreneurs of Tartu County, called “Good ideas, good knowledge, good action!”. Rivo Noorkõiv, a consultant of Geomedia made a presentation about the present situation of entrepreneurship in Tartu County and it's development scenarios. This presentation is...

Within the framework of “Supporting the preparation of Local Government’s amalgamation and service provision”, a guide for the implementation of local government amalgamation processes was drawn up on behalf of the Estonian Ministry of Interior. In this, the former experiences of voluntary amalgamation practices were summed up and example documents...

On 19th of July 2014 the analysis of the think tank “Praxis”, ordered by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research was published. In the analysis, a change in the school network is forecasted for 2020. It proves that pivotal changes are going to happen within the next six years...

The forum of Saare County called “The wisdom of the sea or the thinking limited by the sea?” was held on May 31, 2012. The aim of this exchange of thoughts was to envision the future of the county. A consultant of Geomedia, Rivo Noorkõiv, made a presentation about the...

As result of the cooperation between Geomedia and Sweco Eurofutures, the “Local government comparison atlas: Estonia and Sweden in 12 pictures” was published. It comprises of comparison maps on the basis of the countries’ local government characteristic indicators, which include inhabitants, economics and information on the local governments’ budget. Through...

Geomedia consultant took part as trainer in the Estonian Village Movement Kodukant mentors’ training project “Raise villages”. In the training, the regional development in Estonia was discussed and solutions for the enhancement of community capabilities were searched for in order to take part in leading the future local development. The...

The ITN RegPol² (Socio-economic and Political Responses to Regional Polarisation in Central and Eastern Europe) member organisations’ introductory event on “Basic understandings of core-periphery relations in Central and Eastern Europe” took place from 3-7 November 2014 in Bratislava The ITN RegPol² is funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme...

The newspaper “Postimees” (20.04.2015) has published an article by Rivo Noorkõiv and Mikk Lõhmus on the topic of “Administrative reform in Estonia – decreasing voluntary amalgamations”. The authors argue that systematic changes in Estonia’s administrative system and solutions to contemporary problems faced by local governments do not arise from voluntary...