Activity of public administration is one of the most evaluated aspects involving hundreds of stakeholders across Ukraine. It is an important topic, as evaluation is one of the main ways for collection of the useful evidence for policymaking. Evaluation can be defined as the collection of evidence for formulating a judgement on the merits of an intervention, programme or policy. There is an unsolved task to provide an in-depth analysis with up-to-date information on the role of the evaluation of regional public authorities and local self-government institutions’ activities. The article shows a number of evaluation methods for the public authorities’ activities and reveals the factors that explain the current situation. The authors propose indicators that meet current trends, in particular the concept of sustainable development, within which the world community is moving. The system of balanced indicators allows to link strategic goals and key indicators that measure the degree of their achievement in the regions. The formation of a perfect evaluation system for the public authorities’ activities includes monitoring of the obtained results, their comparison with the forecast and plan under the condition of clearly defined costs in advance. This involves the use of a set of indicators, in particular: indicators that characterize economic and financial sustainability, those which assess institutional development, social transformation, environmental responsibility and energy efficiency. The influence of the public opinion makes any management process more or less public, so it is necessary to intensify the process of the public monitoring of the services provided by the public authorities, with further response or accumulation of the information for further consideration.

The purpose of the article is to determine peculiarities of using modern communications and telecommunications, virtual space, assessing the availability of relevant information that reflects all aspects, processes which are taking place in the economic, social life, and ecology of rural areas. Another purpose is the development of directions for solving existing problems. Methodology. Methods for theoretical synthesis, analysis, and comparison were used in the process of determination of features and substantiation of the basic concepts. Results of the research. It was revealed that in the information provision of Ukrainian rural areas functioning has accumulated a considerable potential. There are such crucial strengths as an existence of a developed infrastructure of state statistics, hierarchically structured organizational structures (centre, region, district) that can provide information collection and processing, as well as its distribution in the opposite direction. Also, there are highly skilled IT specialists and organizational opportunities for their training and retraining. Among other points are the following: an existence of the databases, where scientific and technical information were accumulated; an existence of the databases of modern agricultural technologies; and there is also a developed research infrastructure. But today, the level of use of automation tools continues to remain extremely low in the rural management authorities in Ukraine. The long-standing experience in using information technologies by enterprises and organizations is practically not used in the management of territories. Full informational support of rural areas is possible in case of the organization of the qualitative monitoring of their development with simultaneous taking into account further forecasts for a set of most characteristic indicators for the territory in a certain period of time. A promising task is the integration of Ukraine’s information systems into the international information space. This task involves synchronizing national standards, methodologies, and tools with international standards, as well as improving communication with international scientific and information centres. Practical implications. The creation of an integrated information and communication system of rural areas will help to solve the tasks of effective territorial management. The main components of this system will be the following: the developed infrastructure for access to information; informational systems of local self-government bodies; informational monitoring systems; e-commerce and marketing systems; consulting electronic services; distance learning and retraining systems. Within the enterprises, it is necessary to use information and computer technologies for the accumulation of data about the social, economic, and ecological activity. It is advisable to supplement the monitoring information regarding the development of rural areas by subjective assessments, results of sociological surveys. An improvement of the software system “Household Accounting for Village Councils” involves the use of clientserver technology with the combined use of telecommunication and print media. A promising area for research and management of rural areas on the basis of the spatial representation of processes is the use of geographic information systems and global positioning. Value/originality. The integrated informational and communicational system of rural territories will ensure the efficiency and quality of their information support and will become the basis of effective management.

Purpose. The purpose of the research is to show the competitive advantages of virtual academic mobility projects and to solve the problem of the availability of academic mobility for rising of the students' competence. Methodology of research. To achieve this goal, the following methods were used in this study: theoretical synthesis, analysis and comparison – in the process of determination of the features and substantiation of the basic concepts; qualitative analysis – for find out the competitive advantages of virtual academic mobility projects in this study. Findings. It has been found that the restriction on access to higher education and lack of potential for satisfying personal and professional goals, are driving the rise of the number of students from all over the world who choose to study abroad. Thus, it’s very important to supplement traditional student’s mobility with innovation in programs and teaching methods, including virtual mobility. The authors analyse the European Union and specifically Erasmus activity that has become a regional leader in supporting the academic mobility of students. The competitive advantages of virtual academic mobility projects were showed. The example of realization the project Erasmus+ MILETUS was given. Originality. Further substantiation of the feasibility of expanding the teaching practice through the implementation of virtual mobility projects has been further developing, which, as MILETUS experience shows, will facilitate the internationalization of the educational process and prepare students for effective participation in international educational research projects where students gain experience in international, inter-institutional studies teams, together with colleagues from other countries. Practical value. Proposals, which were formulated on the base on the results of the study, can be used by educational institutions to improve international cooperation and enhance student mobility. Key words: virtual mobility; projects; benefits; collaboration; learning.

The society expects from the public authorities an effective and responsible decisions. An unsolved task is to develop a methodology for ensuring adequate assessment of results and costs. The article shows evaluation methods of the public authorities' activities. The authors propose indicators that meet current trends, e.g. the concept of sustainable development. The method of qualitative analysis was used to find out the transformation assessment of the public activities. The system of balanced indicators allows to link strategic goals and key indicators that measure the degree of their achievement in the regions.

Abstract. Introduction. The article considers mergers and acquisition deals that took place in the agro-industrial sector of Ukraine's economy in 2018-2020 and assesses key trends in the rural development of the country. Territorially the biggest part of Ukraine is rural areas, thus it’s obvious that their development shall and may have significant influence on the development of the country, as a whole. Purpose. The study was preceded by the following tasks: to describe and assess the main features of the processes of mergers and acquisitions in the agro-industrial sector of Ukraine's economy in 2018-2020. The theoretical basis of the study was papers related to the processes of mergers and acquisitions, the development of rural areas. Methods of synthesis and analysis were used. Data and information from the InVenture Investment datatbase, as well as the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (SSSU), were analysed, including data on changes in employment and unemployment for 2018 – 2020 in Ukraine. The obtained data were processed descriptively by statistical analysis methods. Results. According to the results of the analyses was find out that in the agro-industrial sector of Ukraine, the strategy of inorganic growth of enterprises (through the merger and acquisition deals) remains relevant and popular, the participants of the deals are mostly Ukrainian companies, and the subject in most cases is 100% stake in the company, however, foreign investors are also interested in the Ukrainian companies and find out Ukrainian economy, especially its agro sector, extremely interesting for investments. Conclusions. Speaking about the potential influence of the M&A activity on the rural areas development lets look at the employment rate on such territories, as this is one of the most direct indicator of the people’s prosperity. Observations show that the employment of the population of rural areas of Ukraine is declining much faster than the urban population. The connection between the activity of the local enterprises in the M&A deals and the prosperity of the local community has no linear dependences. The list of references includes appropriate literature, which forms a good base for the performed research.