Transformations in China’s cultural and ideological narrative since the 2010s have required the establishment of specific Chinese “think tanks of a new type,” which are formally institutionalized in Chinese legislation. In the initial period of their development (2013–2018), thinktanks were tasked with becoming a significant “soft power” tool to promote and explain key political and economic ideas, including Xi Jinping’s initiatives, so say to “reconceptualize” official ideas at the expert and analytical level and translate Chinese ideological initiatives language into the generally accepted language of expert discussion. However, since 2019–2020, being challenged by creating an anti-Chinese alliance, think-tanks were required to carry out not only expert-analytical work but also to develop draft decisions on critical issues of external and internal development. China’s political leaders seek to create a new type of analytical culture, stimulating the development of new types of centers and completely transforming the old ones. Of the four types of centers – governmental, academic, university, and public (non-governmental) – the governmental and public centers have proved the most effective. In contrast, the centers that grew out of academic institutions and university structures have been criticized for being slow and impractical in their judgments. At the same time, a number of public analytical centers have grown into giant corporations: today, they have branches in dozens of Chinese cities and abroad, maintain ties with Chinese Huaqiao, and advise the country’s authorities on crucial issues of political and economic development.

The paper includes the analyses of university cities role in Europe, their properties and their origin causes. The main purpose of the article is the European university cities characteristics determination. The author clarified a concept of university city, since there is no clear scientific definition because each country has its own understanding of the university city meaning. In a narrow sense a university city is, as a rule, a small or medium-sized city, where the main socio-economic processes are closely related to the university and scientific activities. The general characteristics for a classifying a city as a university city is the historical and economic universities role and the total number of students and scientific workers. In Europe, most university cities are formed due to the long history. In medium and small university cities, the scientific and university cluster plays a city-forming role. Usually in older university cities, the university and campus occupy a vast area.

In the research, the author analyzes specific examples of university cities. Attention is also paid to urban planning aspects because universities occupy vast city’s territory. Now in a knowledge-based society, universities play an important role including the linkages between the local and global levels of the knowledge economy. The city and university interaction is shown on the example of German university cities: Heidelberg, Göttingen, Marburg and Tübingen. It has been found that a young population structure is observed in these German cities. There is also a large proportion of young people among immigrants and residents with a migratory background.

The article examines the trends of transformation of modern law under the influence of a technological breakthrough as a new stage of scientific and technological progress. The general trends of globalization and differentiation of law are highlighted, and the consequences of these trends, expressed in the growth of the number of complex branches of law that combine public and private interests, are considered. For the purpose of systematization, three main forms of globalization in law are identified: universalization, internationalization and integration. The analysis of the evolution of the legal system in the historical dimension allows to distinguish three stages of differentiation of modern law. At the first stage of the differentiation of law in the XX century, it was mainly expressed in the fragmentation of traditional branches of law. The second stage of the differentiation of law at the turn of the XX and XXI centuries is characterized by the intensive formation of complex mixed branches of law that join the institutions of public and private law for certain purposes of legal regulation. At the third, modern stage at the junction of the first and second decades of the XXI century. under the influence of scientific and technological progress, there is not only a further diversification and integration of traditional  and  new  complex  branches of law, but also a group of functional and instrumental branches of law. Th se branches of auxiliary law (due to its functional significance) determine the socio-legal technologies of regulation, implementation and development of law (for example, collision law, mediation law, digital law).

The author puts forward the concept and reveals the system of branches of law of the new generation as the highest form of evolution of complex branches of law, justifies their special nature and significance in the system of law. The author also systematizes the branches of law of the new generation, taking into account the degree of their development in legal doctrine and law practice.

Special attention is paid to digital law and bio-law, which most clearly indicate the impact of scientific and technological progress on law, as well as exposing the problem of the need for closer interaction of the principles and norms of law and ethics.

At the present stage of medical technologies development, high-performance sports have faced serious difficulties. Its rules and fundamental principles not only fail to keep pace with changes in law and society, but also sometimes contradict themselves. High-performance sports is a balance between the basic rights to selfdetermination as a person of a certain gender and the rules of fair play. The reality is that in order to win sports competitions, people go to extreme measures, for example, changing their biological gender. In this situation, determining the persons (men, women) with whom an athlete should compete becomes not such a simple task, there is legal uncertainty, which sometimes does not provide an opportunity to clearly determine what gender a particular athlete is. The unequal struggle or “death of women’s sports” as such, as well as concerns that men who become women gain an unfair advantage in women’s competitions and the increasing number of cases of participation of transgender athletes in international competitions, prompted the authors of the article to analyze the foreign experience of legal regulation of the participation of such persons in high-performance sports. What is more important: the right to self-determination and self-acceptance as a person of the opposite sex or the rules of fair play? If there are special and general rules of legal regulation, a normative act of a private nature is applied, defining the “self-determination of a person” as a dominant in sports matters. But is everything so clear in high-performance sports? Legal conflicts and ambiguous legal situations (legally significant circumstances) are considered within the framework of this article.

This article investigates new global trends in scientific and technological development and their impact on sustainable socio-economic  development of individual countries and the world as a whole. The author shows the importance of implementing emerging technologies that open up new opportunities for the global economic growth by changing its technological basis, giving a competitive advantage to those countries that are leading this change. The article analyses which new approaches to science and technology policy are being adopted in developed and developing countries to maintain high positions in the R&D and emerging technology, and to conquer new markets. Furthermore, the author reveals the risks associated with a serious gap between Russia and the leading countries, which is unlikely to be bridged with the existing raw material export-based development model. Analyzing the state of scientific andtechnological development, advance in the field of new technologies, as well as implemented strategies and programs in this area, the author identifies key areas for improving scientific and technological state policies, which will allow the country to intensify R&D and innovation in this area, strengthen its position in the global hightech markets and create prerequisites for increasing Russia’s competitive advantages in the global technology scene.

The externally induced intensification of the use of information and communication technologies in 2020 coincided with the ongoing digitalization of the world economy over the past decade. While digitalization is not a new phenomenon, the issues surrounding it are constantly changing. Before the pandemic, the discussion around digitalization mainly focused on the concepts of the fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT). The pandemic brought digitalization to companies and industries that had previously been relatively backward in this respect. During the pandemic, the shift of employees to remote work using ICT technology reached an unprecedented scale and stimulated a change in consumer behavior, and the duration of the pandemic triggered a long-term process of adoption of new types of ICT goods and services.

The ICT corporations were able to significantly increase their user base and use the accumulated innovation potential to bring new products and services to market. This paper examines the implications of the pandemic for the digital infrastructure and the digital economy. The pandemic has contributed to the emergence of hybrid business models that combine the features of offline and online services. The strengthening of innovative competition in the ICT sector can lead to further consolidation of the industry, which is already being noted in the semiconductor industry and the segment of ICT services. Separately, the paper examines the Russian innovation policy in the digital sphere. Also, given the inevitable growth of innovation and trade competition in the digital sphere in Russia since 2017, new directions of state support for digital companies, products and services have been created. It is shown that the main focus of innovation policy in this area in Russia remains the public services segment. At the same time, the relevant national programs face the problem of goal-setting.

The article analyzes the policy of South Korea in the field of science and technology, examines the main trends of the ROK’s science development, current state, key problems and prospects of the industry. The characteristics of the state scientific and technological policy and its main actors are presented. It is stated that at the beginning South Korea abundantly used adopt experience, foreign technologies and successfully got accepted them in production. The ROK succeeded to hold leading positions in the world innovation ratings through smart patent activity, essential investment and government policy. At the same time, the author predicts the necessity of tremendous efforts, includes but not limited to fi ancial injection for maintaining such high figure. The issue of not only human resources’ import but also keeping of South Korean skilled labor, the demand and competition for whom are ramping up dramatically, has still unresolved. The article focuses on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the scientific policy and the development of innovations in the fight against such pandemics. It was revealed that research in the field of biotechnology and establishment of “smart” health care centers based on the innovations become a priority of science policy. It was noted that South Korea one of the first reaps the benefits of IT solution, which helps to prevent economics collapse and further viral shedding through the rapid digital technics’ implementing.

The article examines one of the main directions of the implementation of a large-scale program of economic reforms in Saudi Arabia (Saudi Vision-2030), aimed at ridding the Kingdom’s economy of an alarming dependence on oil export revenues – the digital transformation of society, governing structures, and the economy as a whole. In the past few years, the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, which has become the largest in the Middle East, is increasingly visible not only in this region. Its development is particularly dynamic due to large investments in the latest technologies. The success of the ICT sector was also facilitated by the creation of new supervisory bodies and the improvement of the regulatory framework for various areas of digitalization. The country’s leadership aims to make Saudi Arabia one of the world’s leading countries in the field of ICT by building a digital economy based on the principles of the Fourth Industrial Revolutionanddigitalgovernanceofsociety. The five-year digital development strategy (2019–2023) provides for the growth of the ICT sector by 50% and an increase in the rate of “Saudization” of this sector to 50% by 2023. This strategy is expected to increase the contribution of the ICT sector to the economy by at least $13.3 billion. Assessing the prospects for the development of digitalization in Saudi Arabia, the author found four factors that make it possible to assess them as very favorable – sufficient funding, acceleration of the privatization process, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the inevitability of the diversification of the national economy, which is impossible without digitalization.

The article aims to identify the key trends and main areas of development of arms trade and military-technical cooperation between South-East Asian countries and the United States and European Union countries over the past decade (2011–2020). In addition to the direct procurement of weapons and military equipment (with a detailed list of purchased systems for each of the South-East Asian countries), the supply of subsystems and components, the licensed production and other forms of military-technical cooperation are also considered. The growth of military expenditures and arms procurement of the South-East Asian countries over the past decade is analyzed in terms of influence of such drivers as internal instability, the China-US confrontation in the Pacific region and the unresolved disputes between the countries in the South China Sea, the modernization of the armed forces and national defense industries in SouthEast Asia. On this basis, conclusions are made about the prospects for development of military-technical cooperation and arms procurement in the region, as well as how the changes taking place in this sphere affect Russia’s military-technical cooperation with South-East Asian countries.

The ongoing process of militarization of the informational environment leads to the evolution of approaches to the force-based methods of transformation of the geopolitical balance. It appears that the methods based upon the capabilities to limit the escalation appear to be the most acceptable. However, they open the door for chaotization of viral regions. That increases sharply the interest of the key players in the world politics towards this model of interstate competition that includes military means but is still below the level of classic conventional conflict. Earlier the use of such methods based upon the methods of interrelated informational, psychological and cyber-informational influence were addressed with caution since even 5–7 years ago these methods were not properly elaborated yet and did not give guaranteed results, as well as were related to the high risks of disclosure of the basic information about the organizers of actions and mostly were regarded as supplementary element to the more robust and tested methods of direct military aggression. Nowadays the leading role in the spectrum of military instruments is occupied by the hybrid wars that are a complex phenomenon that includes diverse instruments of political, informational and military (force) nature. The new potential of digital information society serves as an integrating basis for hybrid wars. With their emergence and practical approbation of the new model of war as well as their structural sophistication integration with the force instruments world enters a drastically new political era in which hybrid wars and especially the methods of informational manipulations take the leading roles and become the major instruments of the implementation of the state politics. For Russia that means a substantial change of the environment for competition with other countries as well as for an ultimate necessity to supplement to the foreign policy inventory with the new capabilities that go beyond classic diplomacy and also beyond the soft power potential that is rather underdeveloped in Russia.

The usage of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been becoming one of the factors of the armed conflicts development and also the regulation of them. It means that readiness and ability to use UAVs effectively and the scale of equipping the armed forces with UAVs are rather important criteria of the legal capacity of the state armed forces. The article tries to explore the development of this process on the example of German armed forces which traditionally has had rather developed and high-tech industrial base.

The Bundeswehr`s equipping with drones allows not only to decide some military-tactical problems but also to fill the shortage of personnel. It is too important in the context of the planned growth of all parameters of German armed forces for long-term perspective. The article presents the types of the Bundeswehr non-combat, especially recon drones, the features of their usage in zones of the armed conflicts. The Bundeswehr faces some difficulties in the question of equipping by non-combat drones. The article also pays attention to German cooperation with the USA and the EU member states in the sphere of the creating and production of military robots. The author pays special attention to question of the Bundeswehr`s equipping by combat UAVs. This idea actively and at the same time smoothly is promoted by CDU/CSU leaders for a decade. The discussion in the Bundestag is shown (its active phases were in spring and especially autumn of 2020). The article also issues the consequences of possible positive decision of the question of Bundeswehr`s equipping by armed drones. It will mean gradual departure from commitment of “strategic restraint” that is historically determined by Germany’s responsibility for starting World War II.

One of the paradoxes of our full of controversies and drastic changes era was the union formed by national populists and a certain group of workers who just a few decades ago had been stalwart proponents of left-wing parties. Workers were the ones who secured Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential elections and also were responsible for the rise of such populist parties as the National Rally (formerly, the National Front) and the Freedom Party of Austria in Europe. This paper is an attempt to analyze the reasons behind this alliance, the nature of relationships between workers and far-right populists and the prospects of cooperation in the future. In particular, there is an indication that the negative effects of globalization (delocation of production, increasing social inequality, and etc.), an actual switch by social democratic and center-left parties to neoliberalist views and an active utilization of social rhetoric by the “new right” politics have caused a certain part of workers to join their ranks. However, having secured the power, these national populist parties and politics mostly carried out reforms that favored the interests of business rather than those of ordinary voters. At the same time, a conclusion is drawn that the alliance between far-right populist parties and workers will continue in the near future. Both the crisis amidst “old” leftwing parties and social and economic problems will contribute to this eff ct.