Victoria Ramos Gonzales, from Bolivia, is a student of the ‘Master in International Management’ programme and researches management systems with a focus on Latin America. In this interview with the HSE News Service, Victoria talks about choosing to study at HSE University, presenting her research to experts at a seminar, and finding the confidence to use Russian in daily life.

Career prospects in Russia prove to be more important for African students than climate, language barriers, or everyday difficulties. HSE researchers came to this conclusion after analysing survey results from students representing 28 countries across the continent. The key factor influencing their decision is the opportunity to start working while still studying.

HSE researchers have found that the likelihood of quitting smoking rises with increasing financial struggles. While low levels of financial difficulties do not affect smoking behaviour, moderate financial stress can increase the probability of quitting. Responses to high financial stress differ by gender: men are almost 1.5 times more likely to give up cigarettes, whereas no significant effect is observed on women’s decisions to quit smoking. 

Forbes has published its eighth annual ranking of the best Russian higher education institutions. HSE University took first place. Its leadership was secured, among other factors, by strong support from employers and high performance in the Academic Environment metric.

Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain used magnetoencephalography to study how the brain responds to words during reading. In children, the brain takes longer to process words that are frequently used in everyday speech, while rare words are processed in the same way. With age, high-frequency words shift to a fast route, whereas new letter combinations are still analysed slowly. 

Zhou Jinyu, from China, is a student of the Bachelor’s programme ‘Data Science and Business Analytics’. In March, Zhou Jinyu delivered the report ‘Exploration of Object-Centric Process Mining Using Object-Centric Sequence Diagrams’ as part of the PAIS Lab seminar. In her interview with the HSE News Service, she spoke about her research and her experience of studying at HSE University.

More than 3,000 international school students took part in the INTO HSE International Olympiad, whose award ceremonies were held in Tashkent and Bishkek in March 2026. The university’s outreach events also included final examinations, presentations of academic programmes, and on-site selection tests for prospective applicants. In Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, nearly 200 participants received diplomas as winners and prize-winners. The best of them will be eligible to apply for state-funded places at HSE.

The Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics studies highly complex processes of interaction between molecules and atoms in solids and liquids, the quantum mechanics of these processes, and ultra-thin two-dimensional materials. HSE physicists, together with colleagues from leading academic institutes, investigate the properties of superconductors and topological materials, phenomena at ultra-low temperatures, as well as problems of turbulence and hydrodynamics.

The award ceremony for the winners and runners-up of the first International Software Engineering Olympiad PROD took place in Moscow. It was attended by over 4,000 high school students from all Russian regions and 33 other countries, including Armenia, Brazil, Germany, Georgia, Denmark, Israel, Indonesia, China, Congo, Laos, Liberia, the USA, South Korea, and Japan.