The Russian Research Center (RRC) was established on November 1, 2007 in affiliation with the Institute of Economic Research at Hitotsubashi University when the university became a National University Corporation. It was triggered by a research commission from the Toyota Motor Corporation that was part of the university’s efforts to promote collaboration between academia and industry. Since the end of the Second World War, the institute has been the main center in Japan for research on socialist planned economy. It is widely recognized as a leader of Japan's research activities in the field of theoretical and empirical studies on the transition process of the former communist economic systems, which started with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Therefore, the research studies focus on the present Russian Federation that used to be the core of the Soviet Union. By leveraging on the accumulated knowledge and extensive network of researchers and academic research organizations worldwide, RRC aims to (1) contribute to the development of research on the Russian economy at the institute and (2) build strong collaborative relationships between the institute and industry by providing academic support to Japanese companies that have established or plan to establish a foothold in Russia.
The current administration of RRC is organized as follows: the Director of the Institute acts as the Director of RRC, two professors from the Research Division of Comparative and World Economics work as research staff members, and a research associate supports the activities of RRC. Other researchers and academics work at RRC as research collaborators. Currently, RRC is conducting several research projects on the Russian society and economy based on the grant-in-aid(s) of the Ministry of Education and Science of Japan and sponsorship from private funds. The research from 2007 to 2008 focused on Russia's policy regarding its automobile industry. It involved understanding the medium-term economic policies and government economic forecasts, interviewing people from and experts on the Russian government, and conducting an extensive study of the relevant documents. Since 2009, we started expanding the scope of our research and planned to investigate the (1) framework for implementing industrial policies used by the federal government, including the legal system, (2) relationship between policies and business under the Putin administration, (3) government policy regarding the population and labor force, (4) development of company law and corporate governance system, and (5) issues regarding the globalization of Russian economy, including the macroeconomic impact of the world oil market and the recent politico-financial crisis.
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