His research interests focus on quality of governance, electoral clientelism and political opposition in Russia. He graduated MA in political science at European University in Saint Petersburg. In 2010, Aleksey Gilev defended his PhD on the factors of post-soviet regime transformations. He was a director and researcher in the Center for Comparative History and Political Studies in Perm State University in 2012-2016. Since 2016/17 he worked in Higher School of Economics Saint Petersburg and Smolny College of liberal arts and science. In 2017-2020, Aleksey was a fellow at Andrew Gagarin Center for Civil Society and Human Rights. Since 2023 he is making his PhD project on the historical origins of dissent in the USSR at University of Helsinki.

Aleksey published articles on electoral clientelism and machine politics in Russian regions. His recent research projects were dedicated to the quality of public goods provision at the local level in Russia and sources of local autonomy in Russia. He edited a collective volume “Politics in Hard Times: Political Support in Russia during Economic Crisis in 2010s” (2018).

He taught courses on Political Sociology, Policy Analysis, Political theory and Human Rights, Comparative politics, Russian politics, Comparative authoritarianism, and different disciplines in Political Science in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg University and Higher School of Economics and the course on Teaching Social Sciences in European University in Saint Petersburg.