This international course is aimed at second- and third-year SSE Riga students and will introduce them to discussions around global challenges that impact our economies, societies and even individuals.

As Course Director Kata Fredheim points out: “Since the lectures will be from four countries, this will be a truly interdisciplinary – and international – course. Lecturers from four universities from four different regions will be working together to explore approaches together with SSE Riga students on how to address challenges for the future that the world is facing. The pandemic has exposed complex global interdependencies, an experience that makes the ‘global challenges’ concept even less abstract and will definitely boost interesting classroom discussions.”

The course will allow students to gain an understanding of the concepts and tools that modern social scientists (mostly economists, sociologists, and political scientists) use to discuss these issues. 

Once we realize the scope of the challenges that today’s world is facing, an obvious question is: What is the best course of action? This is a question for everyone: for national governments, international organizations, even individuals. The course will also discuss what other possible challenges we should prepare ourselves for in the next decades. The following offers a general idea of some of the questions that course topics may cover:

  • What impedes economic development in some countries but accelerates it in others? Why is this important?
  • Climate change: How real is it? Can talking about it make a difference?
  • Is your generation facing a grimmer future than that of today’s parents?
  • What are the likely long-term effects of COVID-19 for today’s young in terms of education, jobs, and incomes?
  • What is the global impact of gender inequality? What does ‘tackling’ gender inequality mean?
  • How does the increasing flow of migrants to developed countries represent an opportunity or a threat both for migrants and their receiving countries?
  • What is the impact of corruption in new democracies?