The project is devoted to development of conditions for support people-to-people cooperation between Finnish and Russian citizens by means of simplifying access to governmental social services of neighboring country such as customs, visa obtainment, traffic laws, etc., in particular for people, who are not wholly guarded by any kind of legal entity, for instance, a travel agency. The easy access to governmental social services provides an opportunity for people to freely travel in program region, initiate and develop contacts in numerous fields of activities, such as business, cultural exchange, or education.

The project supports regional and local communities, enhancing cooperation between local and regional authorities in the program region providing for them Web-based platform and recommendations to improve access to governmental social services for support of citizens in a different country and foreigners in one's own country.

Furthermore, the project provides local level supports to the administrative reform in Russia because suggested approach can be adopted for improvement of governmental social services rendering to St.Petersburg citizens, including increasing their awareness of laws and formalities in the country and stimulating development of civil society. The project promotes educational cooperation through creating a Finnish-Russian student research group from universities which are members of the project consortium. This allows expanding people-to-people connections in the field of education: teachers and students will have an opportunity to get to know one another better, students would receive an interesting practical experience in applied social sciences and software engineering.

Overall Objective

To contribute to social development of St Petersburg, Imatra and Lappeenranta regions through improving access to on-line social services for Finnish and Russian citizens by developing and testing new customer friendly Web-based approach.

Imatra municipality, St.Petersburg government and local municipalities, students of St.Petersburg and South-Karelia universities who are interested in software engineering and social sciences.

Final beneficiarie

In Finland

• Self-governing Finnish tourists in Saint-Petersburg
• Finnish people who have private interests in Saint-Petersburg
  
• Finnish businessmen who have or intend to create business in Saint-Petersburg
• Finnish students who study in Saint-Petersburg

In Russia

• Self-governing Russian tourists in Finland
• Russian people who have private interests in Finland
• Russian businessmen who have or plan to create business in Finland
• Russian students who study in Finland
• St.Petersburg citizens who employ governmental social services

Main outputs

• Identified typical problems and peculiarities in use of governmental social services by Finnish people in Russia and Russians in Finland.
• Web-based services for informational support for Finnish people in Russia and Russians in Finland who are not wholly guarded in neighboring country by any kind of legal entity, for instance, a travel agency.
• E-community and social network to exchange information between Finnish people and Russian people about problems which they face in neighboring country and ways to resolve them.
• Recommendations for Russian and Finnish municipal and regional authorities for improvement of social services for foreigners.
• Organized joint Finnish-Russian students research groups in IT and social science.
• Developed training materials in IT and social science for Russian and Finnish universities.
• Recommendations for government of St.Petersburg for improvement of access to social services for Russian citizens.