The BFPE belongs to the Network of Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe. This Network started 21 years ago when Elena Nemirovskaya founded the Moscow School of Political Studies. From the 5 members of staff in early 2004, the BFPE team grew to the present 15-strong team, all with formal education in humanities and social sciences. Additional non-formal education and specialization of BFPE's staff in international relations and European integration, regional cooperation and security issues, development work and project management, public relations, human resource management, etc, aim at achieving higher levels of knowledge, skills and qualification relevant for their work, in accord with the principle of lifelong learning which is the underlying context of BFPE operation.

BFPE fulfills its major task of helping men and women engaged in public affairs to obtain additional knowledge and mandatory skills primarily by multi-year capacity building programs. These programs are tailor-made to respond to the needs of our participants and the requirements of their roles in society. Seminars and trainings are always attended by participants belonging to various political parties, and often by individuals from very different spheres of public life. They operate by Chatham House rules in order to achieve more freedom of both the participants and the lecturers, since without such a free flow of ideas and arguments the process of learning is insufficient. Over the last ten years, these forms have also proved to be genuine confidence building tools. In the process of learning and debating together, participants get to know each other much better and understand that belonging to different political parties does not necessarily make people adversaries.

Source: BFPE