Akhtar Hussain, from Skardu, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, is a second-year student of the Master’s in Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication at the HSE University School of Foreign Languages in Moscow. In this interview with the HSE News Service, he shares his experiences of seeing Russian history come to life, representing the university on stage and on the football field, volunteering, and more.

Fuad Aleskerov, Director of the International Centre of Decision Choice and Analysis at HSE University, together with his colleagues, has developed methods of network analysis in bibliometrics that have made it possible to identify patterns in the appearance and citation of publications in academic journals, as well as their influence on each other. When one or a number of studies are frequently cited by a wide range of journals, this is an indicator that the research is of high quality.

A team of researchers, including scientists from HSE University–St Petersburg, has developed the first open multimodal dataset containing recordings of brain activity, heart function, and video observations to help researchers understand what happens in the human brain during deep concentration. In the future, the dataset could accelerate the development of neural interfaces, rehabilitation technologies, and AI systems.

Benjamin Owusu Sarpong, from Kumasi, Ghana, is a final-year student of the Master's programme 'Politics. Economics. Philosophy' at HSE University–Moscow. Now in the final stage of his studies, Benjamin spoke to the HSE News Service to reflect on his experiences—including the various ways HSE brings different cultures together, the numerous opportunities for self-development outside the classroom, and the essential Russian phrases every international student needs to get by.

Daria Semenova, fourth-year student of the Bachelor's programme 'Asian and African Studies,' spent a semester at the University of Nizwa in Oman. There, she immersed herself in the language environment and came to know the culture of the modern Arab world. Read on to find out about why Daria chose Oman, the specifics of her studies there, and the value of international experience.

An international group of researchers, including mathematicians from the AI and Digital Science Institute at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, has provided a theoretical justification for a simple and computationally efficient method of estimating uncertainty in Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD). The paper has been published on the scientific preprint server arXiv.org and presented at AISTATS 2026.

HSE MIEM, in partnership with Nanotronika JSC, is launching a new master's track: Digital Systems of Technological Complexes of Electronics . Students will study the design of specialised equipment for electronic manufacturing while working on real-world engineering projects together with the industrial partner. The new track is designed to prepare specialists for one of the fastest-growing and most in-demand sectors of the high-tech industry.

Mikhail Samatov focuses on the theoretical study of perovskite solar cells. In this interview for the HSE Young Scientists project, he talks about working on HSE University’s supercomputer, collaborating with Peking University, and making furniture.

In corporations, sports, and academia, people face challenges they cannot handle alone, and selecting the right team is crucial. Tatiana Mayskaya, Associate Professor at the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences and ICEF, together with colleagues from foreign universities, found that less diverse teams are better suited to objectives where a high average performance is important, whereas more diverse teams are preferable when avoiding failure is critical.