BRICS Forum: St Petersburg University experts on urban development, business optimisation and international cooperation

Urban improvement to attract tourists 

Egor Starshov, an assistant to the academic director of the master’s programme "Smart City Management" at St Petersburg University, spoke about how public spaces can act as a driver for the development of tourism in small towns. In particular, he mentioned the programme for the revival of the historical centre of the town of Zaraysk near Moscow. The programme was initiated by local authorities in 2016 and involves local residents and business representatives. 

‘The project for the centre reconstruction with a focus on creating public spaces won the 2018 All-Russian competition for the improvement of small towns. The project focuses on the creation of a comfortable and accessible urban environment to preserve the trade and merchant historical heritage of Zaraysk, said Egor Starshov. ‘We received a grant in the amount of 327 million roubles in 2018-2019 to reconstruct several town streets, buildings, and the area near the 18th-century shopping arcades and the Trinity Church’.

The project "House away" was also launched in Zaraysk. The project is set to systematise information about old houses that are objects of cultural heritage to attract investors and find new owners.

Local residents were involved in the second stage of the town centre development project. There were public discussions in the format of participatory design. The meeting participants were divided into groups and asked to design the territories on large printed maps, marking landscaping elements on the maps and highlighting what they considered as problematic areas. 

As a result, the flow of tourists and excursion groups to Zaraysk increased by more than a quarter over three years and amounted to over 200,000 people. 

Large businesses in regional development 

Yury Blagov, Director of the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University, covered the topic "Corporate charity in Russia: current state and development trends". The report was part of the session "Modern view on charity". The co-organiser was the project "Meet for charity". The report was based on the research materials that had been conducted by the University’s Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility for many years as part of the project "Leaders of corporate philanthropy", launched by a long-time partner, i.e. the Association of grant-giving organisations "Forum of donors". 

Corporate charity of leading companies is predominantly strategic and aimed at creating a value for both society and business, said Yury Blagov. In 2023, 82% of leading companies matched their charitable projects and programmes with their overarching priority to increase business sustainability and to develop the regions where they operate. For comparison, in 2019 there were only 60% of such companies. According to Yury Blagov, the moral motivation for the development of charity, which intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic and clearly manifests itself in the context of the special military operation, does not contradict the transformation of corporate charity and volunteering into an effective business process as part of corporate sustainable development strategies.

Mediation to increase the efficiency of business automation 

Evgeniia Zhomnir, Director of the Mediation Centre at St Petersburg University, spoke at the session "Digital entrepreneurs: transition to small business automation". Today, the market offers entrepreneurs a huge number of solutions for optimising business processes, she said. Customer relationship management (CRM), that is used in sales, marketing and communication with clients, helps improve the quality of customer service and the level of customer satisfaction. Supply chain management (SCM) is used to manage the supply chain, including suppliers, logistics and order management, while robotic process automation (RPA) uses intelligent automation technologies to perform repetitive office tasks. 

‘At first glance, automation brings only positive changes, but it is always associated with the redistribution of resources and processes, which implies the existence of multidirectional interests. This, in turn, can lead to a potential for conflict,’ said Evgeniia Zhomnir, Director of the Mediation Centre at St Petersburg University. ‘Depending on how we can use automation technologies, we can either provide and coordinate resources or begin to fight against ourselves, ineffectively burning and destroying our resources.’ 

In this regard, according to Evgeniia Zhomnir, professional mediation is just what we need. A mediator is a person who remains neutral and ensures confidentiality to help in identifying and resolving disputes and conflicts in any industry. Each of the potentially problematic sectors has its own techniques that help use the conflict as a point of growth. The risk of a corporate dispute can be eliminated by pre-mediation and an investment or corporate agreement between partners. Any dispute with a client can be resolved by developing an algorithm for interaction with difficult clients and adopting assertive behaviour. Difficulties with reconfiguring business processes can be overcome by a conflict management consulting procedure.

Interaction of BRICS countries in the Arctic 

The section "Multilateral cooperation in the Arctic: interests and strategies" featured reports presented by Mariia Lagutina, Professor at St Petersburg University, and Anton Sokolov, an expert of the Russian Gas Society and a visiting lecturer at St Petersburg University. 

According to the speakers, the prospects for Arctic scientific cooperation are acquiring a new dimension for Russia in the context of the current difficult geopolitical situation. According to Mariia Lagutina, today’s agenda includes the search for new partners, geographical diversification of ties among non-Arctic countries, including the BRICS countries, that are interested in the Arctic. Russia is the country that coordinates bilateral relations between the participants in the association in this region. Russia is the only Arctic country in this international union. Russia, with China and India that have an observer status in the Arctic Council, are the most active in the bilateral cooperation. 

Yet, in the context of the upcoming expansion of BRICS, there is a possibility that the Arctic agenda will fade into the background, since among the new members of the association (Argentina, Egypt, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia) there are no countries with clear interests in the Arctic, at least in the field of scientific cooperation, said Mariia Lagutina.

Criminal liability 

Sergey Olennikov, Head of the Department of Criminal Law at St Petersburg University, took part in the discussion about the prospects for introducing criminal liability of legal entities in Russia. The lawyer emphasised that this issue was hotly discussed during the period of criminal and legal reforms in the 1990s. The authors of one of the drafts of the Criminal Code proposed to introduce liability in the form of a fine, a ban on engaging in certain activities, liquidation of a legal entity, or confiscation of property as a punishment for causing harm by legal entities. 

However, the opponents of this idea, both in the 1990s and today, insist that introducing criminal liability for legal entities does not correspond to the basic principles of criminal law, i.e. the principles of personal liability and fault liability. A crime is always an act, the speaker explained, and in the criminal law, liability is associated with the fact that the person who committed a crime was aware of what he/she had been doing and controlled his/her actions. These traits are characteristic of a person, not a company. As a result, criminal liability for legal entities was not included in the Criminal Code adopted in the mid-1990s. Yet the discussion is still underway.

The session "Agriculture 4.0: how the future of agriculture is born" at the BRICS Forum featured a report by Anton Nizhnikov, Professor at the Russian Academy of Sciences and Acting Head of the Department of Genetics and Biotechnology at St Petersburg University. He discussed the possibilities of biotechnologies. The session "Results of South Africa’s BRICS chairmanship: new horizons of the strategic cooperation" included a report by Nikolai Dobronravin, Professor at St Petersburg University. Ekaterina Shugrina, Professor at St Petersburg University, took part in the round table ‘Role and place of deputies in local government: yesterday, today, tomorrow’.

There is an opinion that criminal liability of companies can be regarded as crime prevention. ‘The very fact of introducing the criminal and legal norm can force companies to conduct activities taking into account the presence of relevant prohibitions in the criminal law. If they are violated, relevant criminal legal measures will be taken,’ said Sergey Olennikov. 

During the round table, the experts emphasised that if a reform of criminal legislation is carried out in Russia and criminal liability is introduced for legal entities, this will require a revision of almost all institutions of the general part of criminal law and harmonisation of legislation in the field of administrative law, regulation of international obligations and the introduction of the measures of responsibility that are based on the basic provisions of criminal law.