Together with the demise of the Soviet Union and Georgia’s transition to a nation state as well as challenges of a new
wave of globalisation the issue of social cohesion in Georgia became an important topic for its further democratic
development. With the proposed research we would like to contribute to civic integration studies in Georgia by
developing an instrument for research on social cohesion in urban settings of Georgia. Besides national representative
survey we will conduct qualitative research in five smaller towns of Georgia and Tbilisi as control case to analyse the
specific perception of living in Georgia’s regions with all its implications. Empirical data derived through methods of
in-depth interviewing and focus groups are essentially helpful to shed light on individual experience on social cohesion
in urban settings. The goal of analysing the representative secondary data set is not only to illustrate the share of
population having specific experience and attitudes towards social cohesion but also to employ bivariate and multivariate
statistical methods and identify important factors affecting level of cohesion in Georgia. Thus we will contribute to a
future European wide and comparative study of rural regions to understand the specifics of rural depopulation and
provide state and civil actors with research-based policy advice on how to address this issue in the future. Besides three
academic publications and a Georgian monograph on the issue, we are planning to create a strong European consortium
for a future application for EU research funding. On the national level the results of our reseach will be reviewed by
discussions on the sites of research, at sociololgy student and an international conference at the closure of the project