International School-Seminar on “Games theory in economics and management”

According to Asian Universities Association plan, Altai State University and L.N. Gumilev Eurasian National University conducted International School-Seminar “Games theory in economics and management” on 8–12 February 2016 in Astana. Such school has been conducted by Asian Universities Association for the 4th time. The 1st seminar was held on the premises of Kazakh Labour and Social Relations Academy in December 2013 in Almaty, then in Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University with the participation of Kyrgyz State Technical University in March 2015 in Bishkek and in East Kazakhstan State University together with East Kazakhstan State Technical University in April 2015 in Ust-Kamenogorsk.

The author, scientific supervisor and main lecturer of the school is Professor of the Department of International Economy, Mathematical Methods and Business Informatics of ASU, Doctor of Economics Igor N. Dubina.

The purpose of the school is to teach the participants the main principles of the games theory for strategic decisions development, certain methods and instruments of decision making under conditions of risk, uncertainty and propensity towards conflicts. Classes were conducted in different formats: from classical presentations, lectures and seminars to team work and business management games with the use of modern instruments of online education and special computer programs.

The topic of the school has been chosen due to the fact that the use of games theory has become an inevitable part of the modern economic education. The decision making skill is vital for magaers and economists. The importance of the games theory has dramatically increased in many areas of economic and social sciences within the recent years.
The participants of the school at Eurasian National University included graduate students, master’s degree students, doctoral candidates and lecturers of Eurasian National University, Kazakh State Law University, S. Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University, Kazakh University of Economics, Finance and International Commerce (more than 100 people in total). The school has integrated the elements of classical academic course on games theory (with a great number of examples, practical tasks, real business cases) with the elements of trainings in the form of business management games. The classes have been conducted in the form of live dialogue with the audience. In course of the event the wide range of situations in different spheres of economics, management, business, politics and social relations have been considered and analyzed from the point of games theory. Great attention was paid to business games, where the participants could master and apply the skill of making strategic decisions to conditions imitating real life situations.

The school has generated great interest among the participants, especially doctoral students. Despite the fact that the classes were conducted during the whole working day, they were able to find the time for doing additional tasks at home.

At the end of the event the participants have passed the exams and received the certificates.

Apart from seminars in the framework of the school, I.N. Dubina also conducted tutorials for doctoral students on the usage of mathematical and statistical methods and computer programs, which could be applied to particular thesis research, and participated in scientific and methodical seminar of the Department of Economics of Eurasian National University on the preparation of academic articles for international peer-reviewed journals. He spoke with the department staff and discussed the issues concerning scientific and educational projects and publications.