90 people became participants of the first stage of the contest. Among them there are students of 1-4 years, undergraduates and graduate students of the educational organizations of higher education and research establishments of the Republic. The students and graduate students put out  49 works in total into sections: "Strategic development and economic safety of the Donetsk People's Republic", "Development of foreign economic relations of the Donetsk People's Republic: problems and opportunities", "Innovative approaches to economic capacity management of the Donetsk People's Republic", "The multidimensional analysis of economic processes in the Donetsk People's Republic: problems of adequacy and systemacity", "Economic conditions of the future of Donbass".

The analysis of works by sections showed that the section "Innovative Approaches to Economic Capacity Management of the Donetsk People's Republic" became the most popular among contestants.

Let's note that by the number of participants the Donetsk national technical university is leading in the contest, the second place is to M. Tugan-Baranovsky Donetsk national university of economy and trade of , the third one is Donetsk national university.

The contest will be extended till April 15, 2017.