Nikita Egorov Explains How to Conduct an Applied Research and Present It to UNESCO
Studies on a Master's programme do not always entail writing a thesis and applying to a PhD programme. In 2020, Nikita Egorov, the graduate of the Bachelor’s programme 'Political Science and World Politics', was enrolled in the Master's programme 'Public Administration' at the Central European University (CEU). He finished his studies with getting an offer of a project work at UNESCO. He told us why applied researches are interesting and what exactly helped him to present the final master's project successfully.
How an applied project differs from a theoretical thesis and why personal working experience and research interests matter
The students of my educational programme prepare an Applied Policy Project (APP) instead of a master's thesis. A thesis is a conventional academic paper. But an applied project is developed under technical specifications provided by international and non-profit organisations, analytical centres or governments. I and two of my course mates from Mexico and the Netherlands have chosen technology policy as the main work direction. I take interest in this sphere due to my professional background: I used to do an internship at a GR company 'Beeline'.
We found the organisation, which we did a project for, ourselves with the help of our lecturer. He told us that apart from teaching, he was simultaneously conducting a project on ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) for UNESCO. In October 2021 at the General Conference, UNESCO adopted the Recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence. This document sets the general direction for the ethical regulations of AI use in all the UN member states. The member states are not under any obligation to follow the regulations described in the Recommendation. But in reality, these principles gradually integrate into the legislation at a national level. That is why the UNESCO Recommendations often shape the international agenda.
Our project was aimed at making an overview of the tools for ethical impact assessment of AI development and use in private companies and public sector. In the beginning, we collected the information about all the usable tools for ethical impact assessment in the world: guidelines, surveys and libraries with the codes for testing AI algorithms. At the time of the research, we discovered 30 tools by various companies, state bodies and analytical centres. At the second stage of the project work, we focused on several tools by Google, IBM, ICO UK, Canadian government and the European Commission.
We came up with a questionnaire for semi-structured interviews to talk to the developers of such tools and people who used the final product. Our aim was to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the existing tools for ethical impact assessment. It would help UNESCO team with the development of their own guidelines which would set the standards at the international level.
It was much harder to talk to the users of the tools as the developers did not always know how their product was used. Nevertheless, some organisations provided us with the contacts anyway. The CEU team helped us with transcribing the interviews: we used special software, which saved us a lot of time and energy. The final report for UNESCO was about 40 pages long.
On the trip to UNESCO headquarters, useful bachelor's courses and future plans
We were not supposed to make an oral presentation of the thesis in the classical sense—we prepared the presentation of the report and delivered it at the university first. After that we went to Paris to UNESCO headquarters. Before the presentation, we stayed up all night as we had to change four trains to get from Vienna to Paris (trains in Europe are another topic for discussion). The CEU grant covered all the costs of travel and accommodation—they have a specific budget for such students' trips.
Recently I have received a letter from one of our supervisors offering me to continue working on the project. At the moment, it combines all my research interests: state regulation and political economy, technology policy, and, of course, philosophy. While working on the project, I am planning to enhance my knowledge in programming in R and Python. Data Science is a very important skill for the evidence-based policy, which I would like to promote in the long run.
When I was writing my master's thesis, all the courses connected with the research methodology, which were taught on the Bachelor's programme 'Political Science and World Politics', really came in handy—in particular, the disciplines on qualitative methods. Creating a research design and formulating the research question—the things we engaged in during research seminars throughout the studies—helped to structure the thesis. While getting my Master's degree at CEU, I attended the courses on Law and Policy Impact Evaluation. This knowledge was useful while I was working on the project for UNESCO as well.
My Master's degree provided me with both opportunities to participate in the international projects and a great number of acquaintances all around the world. Moreover, I have managed to establish contacts with many lecturers. For instance, Lajos Bokros carried out reforms to transit to a market economy in Hungary and was working for The World Bank for a long time. He delivered a very interesting course on monetary and fiscal policy and became a favourite of the whole department. I developed my skills in data analysis during a very difficult course, which was taught by Anand Murugesan, a highly experienced economist from India.
Now I am not planning on applying to a PhD programme, though I already miss the university. I would like to approach the choice of a PHD programme carefully. Perhaps, I would immerse myself in the sphere of political economy, which would allow me to combine all my research interests and later on look at the situation in Russia within my projects and researches. At present, I am looking for a job in the international organisation or an analytical centre to continue working on applied researches and evidence-based policy.