This week, at the usual time of 1500-1615 on Thursday (16th February), the Blavatnik School of Government Research seminar will be visited by Alena V. Ledeneva who is Professor of Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of UCL. She will present findings from a large scale research project on Global Informality. Ledeneva is an internationally renowned expert on informal governance in Russia. Her research interests include corruption, informal economy, economic crime, informal practices in corporate governance, and the role of networks and patron-client relationships in Russia and around the globe. Her books include Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange (Cambridge University Press, 1998), How Russia Really Works: Informal Practices in the 1990s (Cornell University Press, 2006), and Can Russia Modernize? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2013).