Civil Society Development Foundation

The Fund released five major reports in 2012-2013:

• August 2013 – Research: '2013 Elections of Governors and Head of Regional Administrative Centres: campaign scenarios and forecasts'
• May 2013 – Research: President Putin’s Year: results and prospects
• May 2013 - Report: Filtering Content on the Internet: Challenges, trends and techniques. An Analysis of International Practice
• March 2013 – Report on the Development o Civil Society in Russia
• Dec. 2012 - The New protest movement: myths and reality
• Oct. 2012 – Elections under new rules: main result and trends
• Oct. 2012 - Elections under new rules: intrigues and forecasts
• Sept. 2012 – RuNet today: research on the Russian Internet

Away from the Kremlin to the created Fund in May 2012, Konstantin Kostin in an interview to the magazine «Expert» predicted the development of the political activity in Russia for the period 2014–15 years: «Starting from 2014 is a series of very complicated regional elections," he said. "And if our opposition leaders will pass from spells and outdated slogans to real political work, right now realize that this is for the regions, and begin to act, then in 2014-2015 years they have somewhere will have good chances».

In a number of research, conducted by the Fund, a report on protests 2011-2012 is eminent. Kostin said that street policy is a global trend, which will be actual in Russia, but the «new protest wave is over», and the social groups, once united in December, «no longer feel a sense of community».

The objectivity of the research of the Foundation, as well as the estimates and statements of its head was confirmed by the expert community, the participants and the leaders of the protest movement.

The study, the article by Kostin in the «Moscow news» and a series of interviews by Kostin to various mass media on how the protest was seen from the Kremlin, among which, first of all is an interview to Gazeta.ru are of special interest for experts and historians.

The Foundation is launching new, large-scale project researching new media in Russia, using software from the Crimson Hexagon system – an analytics platform which automatically scans and sorts online content. The research will focus on a study of current social and political issues. This would essentially be an alternative in Russia to both "Medialogia" and the once popular – but now defunct - "Yandex Top blogs". The Fund contends that under the Crimson Hexagon scope is to be not just opposition, but authorities as well.

The Foundation is creating an ‘Atlas of political consultants'. This document will be a sort of handbook – a detailed list of reputable political consultants. It will be composed only of those political consultants who have been successful over the past ten years in election campaigns in Russia. This document will help to reduce the number of pseudo political consultants in the run-up to the Single voting day on 8 September.

August 2013, the FDCS released first issue of a Rating of social well-being in the regions The research is based on data from the “Public Opinion” Foundation (FOM) and shows that Russian regions can be rated according to the peoples’ satisfaction levels with their current living situations - taking into account their attitude towards the authorities and protest potential. A person’s sense of social security does not directly depend on the economic situations and living standards of that particular region. FDCS plans to monitor the dynamics of social well-being and to identify key parameters that affect its change.

The head of FOM, Aleksander Oslon, said that he was satisfied with the interpretation by the "geo-rating" method which has been in use for almost a decade and which is used primarily by the Presidential Administration. He is quoted as saying that "The Foundation for Civil Society Development utilises a clear and simple methodology: percentages are converted into points and summarised”.

The Foundation designed a social science teachers conference as a long term project. The main task ahead according to Mr. Kostin was to create a platform for meaningful and interesting discussion on political agendas and also the exchange of ideas between specialists, politicians and civil servants. Welcoming the very fest Conference Kostin expressed his confidence that the conference would help identify the most promising ways forward for further study and research and would lead to a series of lectures on modern day regional and federal politics with a view to creating teaching and learning aids for the younger generation. The conference involved lectures and discussions on the following topics: the latest teaching methods of social sciences; modern political sociology; the interaction between state and civil society; the development of Russia’s political system.

The founders were: Russian Public Policy Fund, Institute for Public Planning an independent non-commercial organization, OPORA ROSSII the All-Russian public organization for SME, MediaSoyuz All-Russian public organization of mass media professionals.

The Members of the Board are: K.N. Kostin (Chairman of the Board @ CEO), A.Yu. Trubetskoy, S.R. Borisov, V.A. Fadeev, S.V. Stoyalova.

Expert council members are: Leonid Davydov, PhD in Political Studies, Chairman of the Board for VTSIOM (Head of the Expert Council); Stanislav Yeremeev, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, Saint- Petersburg State University; Leonid Polyakov, Head of the General Political Science Chair SU- HSE; Valeriy Fadeev, Director of the Institute for Public Planning, Expert Magazine, Editor-in-chief.