About Us
The International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University (ISET) was created in response to a letter in 2005 from Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania - just three weeks before his tragic death - to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, in which he appealed for help in "creating our own capability to train young economists in modern economics, as it is taught all over the world, and to conduct economics research here in Georgia".
Initial input from the World Bank and ongoing support from the Government of Georgia, the Government of Germany, and Tbilisi State University – in cooperation with an international group of donors including BP, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Open Society Institute Higher Education Support Program, and the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) – have made Zhvania's dream a reality. ISET opened its doors to students in 2006 to offer the first world class Master's Program in Economics in the South Caucasus.
The continued success of the Master’s degree program helped facilitate the launch of the Bachelor’s degree program in economics in 2017. The BA curriculum mirrors the best economics programs in North America and Western Europe. Specializations in finance and public policy prepare students for careers in economic research, policy analysis, commercial banking, financial markets, insurance, business, and policy consulting.
Basic Facts
- International quality BA and MA Programs in Economics;
- Full English-language curricula;
- Regional mandate (South Caucasus);
- Around 80 students in the MA Program;
- Around 500 students in the BA Program;
- Over 400 graduates;
- Assistant Professors with PhDs from prestigious programs in Europe and North America;
- More than two dozen senior visiting faculty from Israel, Western Europe and the US;
- An affiliated think-tank - ISET Policy Institute – to engage students, graduates and faculty in policy research, training and outreach for the benefit of the broader academic, public and private sector communities in the South Caucasus;
- Teaching Fellowship Program for ISET alumni to teach modern, market-based economics to the next generation in different universities of the region;
- Excellent placement record, with all graduates holding professional positions that utilize the skills and knowledge they acquired at ISET;
- Internship programs for students with Central Banks, Ministries and leading companies of the region;
- ISET Library, a home to one of the best economics collections in the South Caucasus.
Our Facilities
ISET's Seven-floor Building is located on Zandukeli Street, in the charming Vera neighborhood in the center of Tbilisi. The building is open to ISETers every day of the week, round-the-clock.
State-of-the-art classrooms are equipped with smart boards and full HD quality projectors giving lecturers an excellent opportunity to conduct interactive and online classes, seminars and recitation sessions.
The Mzia Mikeladze Auditorium was built and opened in 2019 as a gift from friends and family of Mzia Mikeladze (1961-2012), who served as ISET's deputy director since the inception of the school in 2006.
ISET's Multimedia Center ensures distance learning opportunities and video communication simultaneously with more than a dozen locations around the world in real time.
The ISET Library holds one of the best modern economics collection in the South Caucasus region. It provides electronic access to thousands of economics, business and social science journals, data, monographs and modern economics reference materials.
ISET’s Computer Lab provides workstations with standard software packages as well as specialized programs for statistics, Internet access and in-house printing.
The ISET Conference Hall provides outstanding A/V, simultaneous translation and videoconferencing capability for public lectures, conferences, and workshops.
The ISET Policy Institute is located on sixth floor of the building. It is home to the ISET-PI secretariat and its research fellows and staff.
The Guest House on the seventh floor of the building provides four luxurious suites for visiting faculty and guests. A cozy faculty lounge serves as a common dining room and entertainment center.
The Student Lounge is a space dedicated for fun activities, including ping-pong, chess, TV & fim.
The Gym facility is available for all ISETers and even guests to make sure that their bodies are as fit as their minds.
Our Library
The ISET library holds the best modern economics collection in the South Caucasus region.
The library provides electronic access to thousands of economics, business and social science journals, as well as hard copies of modern economics reference materials.
Through collaboration with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, ISET serves as a repository for reports and publications of these organizations. The library is also home to the donated collection of late Princeton University economics professor Robert E. Kuenne, and the social science collection of the Caucasus Research and Resource Centers.
The library is open to the public 10:00-19:00, including Saturday and Sunday. It provides multiple workstations and free Wi-Fi access.
Koha is an Electronic Catalog providing online access from within ISET’s computer network to bibliographic information on thousands of books, journals and other publications included in the ISET library. Readers can search the catalog using keywords, reserve library materials that are currently on loan, and review their library status.
Digital Resources
Publications and Documents - explore ADBs data-rich research, policy analysis, toolkits, guidelines, and other resources on economics and key development topics. For detailed search of years 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017 publications lists are also available here in Google sheets, to copy URLs use Ctrl+c combination or sign in to Google sheets after you open link.
JSTOR Arts and Science collections I and II - no password required, but access is available only from the ISET building.
Includes the complete back runs of more than 200 titles, including the core research and society-published journals in economics, history, political science, and sociology, as well as in other key fields in the humanities and social sciences.
EBSCO - no password required, but access is available only from the ISET building.
Access EBSCO is available from home with login and password (without EconLit with Full Text databases) (information is available upon request from the ISET librarian).
ScienceDirect - no password required, but access is available only from the ISET building.
This is one of the largest online collections of published scientific research in the world.
ScienceDirect hosts over 3,800 journals and more than 35,000 books—over 14 million peer-reviewed publications (and growing) from Elsevier, our imprints and our society partners.
Contains all the publications and datasets released by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), International Energy Agency (IEA), Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), OECD Development Centre, PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), and International Transport Forum (ITF) since 1998 - currently (October 2010) 1 000 journal issues, 2 900 working papers, 2 500 multi-lingual summaries, 6 200 e-book titles, 14 000 tables and graphs, 21 000 chapters and articles, and 390 complete databases with more than 4 billion data points. Login and Password information is available upon request from the ISET librarian.
EconPapers - no password required. EconPapers provides access to RePEc, the world's largest collection of on-line Economics working papers, journal articles and software.
Scopus - no password required, but access is available only from the ISET building. Scopus is owned by Elsevier and Searches in Scopus also incorporate searches of patent databases is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 21,000 titles from over 5,000 publishers, of which 20,000 are peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical, and social sciences (including arts and humanities). ScienceDirect - is one of the largest online collections of published scientific research in the world. It is operated by the publisher Elsevier. Offers access to more than 60 journal titles in Economics, Econometrics and Finance. Elsevier journals are not included in any other collection.
IMF eLibrary - no password required, but access is available only from the ISET building. The data interface, which allows unified access to all statistical databases and text materials.
Cambridge University Press - no password required, but access is available only from the ISET building. currently publishes over 300 peer-reviewed academic journals for the global market. Containing the latest research from a broad sweep of subject areas, Cambridge journals are accessible worldwide in print and online.
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) - It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world. As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from those of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You’ll still find these in the OED, but you’ll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.
Open Dissertations For Libraries & Universities - EBSCO and BiblioLabs understand that institutions are seeking to balance the desire to share open research produced on their campus with transparency and choice for their students. EBSCO Open Dissertations is free for authors of ETDs as well as the participating institutions and is meant to increase traffic to individual IRs.
Web of Science Core Collection(1990-present) - Search the world’s leading scholarly journals, books, and proceedings in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities and navigate the full citation network.
The London Mathematical Society - began publishing research papers in 1865 and over time it has published the best of British mathematics having developed an internationally renowned reputation as one of the best publishers of high quality mathematics in the world today. The journals attract authors from over 80 countries and the number of papers submitted has grown enormously in recent years, enabling the Society to select and publish some of the best mathematical research currently available.
Agricola - records describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agricultural economics, extension and education, food and human nutrition, and earth and environmental sciences.
Agora - is administered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
Content supported via World Health Organization architecture.
TSU eBases – Tbilisi State university electronic bases includes thousands of paid and free journals, books, articles etc.