The Research Unit Formaciones Sociales en Transición belongs to the Applied Economics Department of the University of Valencia.

Lecturers from the University of Valencia and from other educational institutions belonging to this University are the basis of the centre of the Research Unit.

Non-university teachers who are developing research activities on transition economies are part of the Research Unit as well.

1.- Objective and research areas.

The objective of the Research Unit Formaciones Sociales en Transición is the analysis of the transition process initiated at the end of the 80s in the centrally planned economies.

a.- the transition in the former Soviet Republics.
Nowadays, one of the main issues for research into Unit is economic transition in Russia. In this line, the Unit is developing studies about the implementation and evaluation of transition policies (liberalisation, stabilisation and trade), structural change and creation of market institutions (privatisation or development of economic mercantilisation) as well as sector studies (energy sector-gas and oil industries- and the industry of defence).

b.- transitions in Central and Eastern Europe.
In this case, the Unit pays attention to the transition process of countries next to the Balkans, such as Romania, and, especially, reforms implemented in Bulgaria.

c.- the other transitions.
Here there are some research lines related to countries where some important changes have been introduced, but it is generally questioned whether they are actually in transition. For instance, there is a research line about economic reforms in China. Nevertheless, the more relevant studies are those about economic changes in Cuba. Particularly, research about economic policies for reform and foreign investment in this country.

2.- External relations of the research Unit “Formaciones Sociales en Transición”.

The Unit keeps solid co-operation relationships with the GATE (Group for Analysis of the Transition Economy), organisation which groups an important part of Spanish researchers on economic transition and whose centre articulates around the University of Barcelona.

Moreover, the Unit has especial institutional relations with the Russian University of the Friendship of the Peoples (Moscow), the Institute of Economics, Urals section of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yekatyerinburg), the State University of Economics of the Urals (Yekatyerinburg), the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan (Cazan´), the University of La Havana and the University of Oriente (Santiago de Cuba).

The unit keeps also relations with two of the most important associations who study the process of transition in former economies with central planification: European Association for Comparative Economic Studies (EACES) and the Association for Comparative Economic Studies (ACES, USA).

3.- Activities.

The Unit organises Transition Seminars, monthly meetings where results of research are presented and discussed, by the researchers of the Unit or by external researchers.

The Congress on Transition Economies is celebrated once a year, every year. Spanish and foreign researchers take part in it. Papers about transition in former central planned economies are presented in this Congress

The Unit publishes Papers Transició, which presents studies about different aspects of transition. These studies are published as articles, though the publication also contains short works about conjuncture, short analysis, statistics,...