On October 28^th and 29^th the first French-Russian Conference took place at the Higher School of Economics, involving discussions on double-degree cooperation programmes and PhD and research collaboration in public administration. Is there bureaucracy in France and what should future officials know? Marcel Guenoun, Professor at Paul Cezanne Aix-Marseille 3 University, and Jean Michel Eymeri Douzans, Deputy Director of SciencePo Toulouse, answered those questions.

On October 29^th the results of the open public competition of the Ministry of Education and Science for financial support of research conducted under supervision of leading scientists in Russian universities were announced. Fedor Bogomolov, Professor of Mathematics at the New York University, and Ronald Inglehart, Professor at the University of Michigan Center for Political Studies, will both receive grants for research work at the HSE.

On October 28^th and 29^th, the French-Russian Scientific Conference ‘Economy, Politics, Society: New Challenges and Opportunities’ took place at the Higher School of Economics and brought together 250 Russian and 150 French participants. The forum was the largest scientific meeting in the history of French-Russian relations.

On October 27^th and 28^th, the international conference ‘Partnership for Progress. From the 2010 Muskoka-Toronto Summits to the Seoul Summit’ took place at the HSE.

On October 22^nd and 23^rd the first international conference ‘Research in Higher Education’ took place at the Higher School of Economics. The event was organized by the HSE together with the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, the World Bank and the National Foundation for Professional Training.

On October 22nd Robert Johnson, Director of Engineering at Facebook, gave a talk at the Faculty of Business Informatics of the Higher School of Economics, invited by the Department of Innovations and Business in Information Technologies. His talk was devoted to the rise of Facebook from 10 million to half a billion active users.

Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly prepared by the OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on The Freedom of Assembly, including Nina Belyaeva, Head of the HSE Department of Public Policy, were published by the OSCE

On October 13^th Christian Wulff, President of Germany, spoke to HSE students about ‘Germany and Russia: Partnership for Modernization’.

On October 12^th Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, spoke to HSE students at a seminar organized by WWF Russia and the Higher School of Economics.

On October 4^th a special session of the Political Economy research seminar took place at the HSE Faculty of Economics. Yang Yao, Deputy Dean of the National School of Development and Professor at the Center for Economic Research, Beijing University, spoke about ‘Equality, the Disinterested Government, and Economic Growth: The Case of China’.