On March 16, the results of the Open Doors International Olympiad for master’s and doctoral applicants were announced. The competition is organised by the Association of Global Universities. The winners of the olympiad will be able to study at Russian universities for free under Russian government quotas for foreign citizens. HSE University is one of the Olympiad’s organisers and the site of its distributed project office.

A team of Russian scientists, including HSE MIEM researchers, have presented a 3D model of SARS-CoV-2 S-protein transmembrane domain. The researchers believe that the model they have created can contribute to a better understanding of viral mechanisms and potentially lead to the development of novel antiviral drugs. The study has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

On March 15, Judas Everett defended his doctoral dissertation ‘The Effect of the Patterns in the Dissolution of Communism on the Transition to New Systems in Eastern Europe’, which investigates the relationship between the demise of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the quality of democracy in the post-communist regime. In his interview, Judas talks about the topic of his research and explains why political science is more important than ever.

Graduate students from HSE University’s Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod campuses have created Prezentos—an online shop featuring unique gifts. The students spoke to the HSE News Service about how their master’s programme at HSE University brings its students together and inspires them to create their own commercial projects.

In the next academic year, HSE University-St Petersburg will open a new master's programme in Data Analytics for Business and Economics. Natalia Volkova, Academic Supervisor of the programme, explains what kind of specialists the programme trains, which tracks are available for students, and which soft and hard skills they will gain.

Skilled readers are known to extract information not only from the word they are looking at but from the one following it. This phenomenon is called pre-processing. Researchers from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain analysed the eye movements of readers and found them to rely on orthographic, rather than phonological, information in pre-processing. The study has been published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

The HSE University Academic Writing Centre (AWC) was created to offer linguistic support to researchers writing articles in English. We spoke to the head of the AWC, Svetlana Suchkova, about the centre’s current initiatives, whether it has had to change the focus of its activities, and why HSE University staff come to the centre.

On March 12, the HSE University Pokrovka building hosted an Open Day. Applicants learned about the rules of admission, the university’s campuses in four cities, programmes, extracurricular activities, and more. At the entrance, volunteers handed out maps of the campus with event locations, so that everyone could plan their own route through the stands, workshops, and other activities.

On March 7, the HSE Art Gallery hosted the opening of ‘Design Futures: Synesthesia’, an exhibition featuring works by students of product and jewellery design at the HSE Art and Design School. The event runs from March 9–May 7.