Improving social services (SE396)
Funded by South-East Finland - Russia ENPI 2007-2013

Objective of the project

The main objective of the project was to contribute to the social development of the regions of St Petersburg, Russia and Imatra and Lappeenranta, Finland through improved access to online social services for Finnish and Russian citizens by developing and testing a new, customer-friendly web-based approach.

Main activities

- Analyzing problems of social services and formal procedures provided for Finland people in Russia and for Russians in Finland. - Development of Web-based platform to specify and provide access to information about governmental social services for Finnish citizens in Russia and Russians in Finland. - Organizing e-community and creation of social network for Finnish and Russian people concerning real problems and successful behavior patterns to increase popularity and usage of the Web-based platform developed. - Development of recommendation for Russian and Finnish authorities for improvement of social services for foreigners. - Involving students of partners universities into international and interdisciplinary research. - Analyzing, dissemination and ensuring sustainability of the Web-system developed.

Achievements

During its implementation, the main factors affecting access to such services were also analysed. Local and regional authorities from both countries were introduced to the best practices and technologies that provide social services for both their citizens and foreigners. IT experts, researchers and students contributed significantly to the project activities. The project concretely included the inclusive research of social services for foreigners in Finland and Russia and the identification of problems faced by frequent individual travelers between the two countries. Project reports and publications may be reviewed at http://sites.google.com/site/improvingsocialservices. The online community platform serving the cross border tourists, students, businessmen etc. has been developed and launched at www.crossbordertravel.ru. The service is integrated with social media such as Facebook, Twitter and VKontakte and it is maintained by local service providers to ensure sustainability. According to the project results, the training course E-Service Modelling, Development and Use along with two additional courses were introduced into the university curriculum.