Winning Research Initiative Projects to be Implemented by the End of 2022
In April, the results of the Research Initiative student project competition were announced at HSE University. Twenty-two team applications were submitted by students of 20 different fields of study at HSE University’s campuses in Moscow, Perm, and Nizhny Novgorod. Based on the results of expert assessment, the competition committee approved 17 interdisciplinary projects to be implemented by December 2022.
Most of the student projects are interdisciplinary and exploratory in nature, giving the teams an opportunity to branch out from their educational programme into cross-disciplinary cooperation. One of the projects to receive support from the competition is ‘Digital trends in law: smart contracts and NFTs’ created by students of law, art history, and computational linguistics. The project proposes a comprehensive examination of current development trends in digital law through a synthetic vision of several fields.
All of the projects supported by the Research Initiative competition involve a significant management and teamwork component. The effectiveness and quality of the final product depends on the distribution of responsibilities and models of interaction adopted within each team. The project ‘The search for enzymes of microscopic fungi that destroy the biofilms of opportunistic bacteria’ involves research work, marketing promotion, market analysis, and finding solutions to financial and other issues. This lets each team member discover their strengths and weaknesses and find new opportunities to grow as both researchers and research managers. Academic awareness is a valuable quality that can be developed through team research work.
Polina Savinova
‘The Research Initiative competition is a window into the world of research,’ explains Polina Savinova, head of the project ‘A multimodal, multilingual system of sentiment analysis of video materials from online sources’ (Nizhny Novgorod campus). ‘The competition is a unique chance to work in a team of like-minded people, an opportunity to be creative without worrying about mistakes. This is because the experts from the Centre for Student Academic Development can give advice to help improve your work at every stage. The most important thing is to believe in your idea and to stay enthusiastic. HSE University will always provide the necessary support for your efforts to conduct top-tier research! That’s why after participating in one project, I had to come back as a team leader this time.’
Ivan Antipenko
Ivan Antipenko, leader of the project ‘A study of the changes in the transcriptome of bladder cancer under the influence of cisplatin and gemcitabine’ (Moscow campus), says that the Research Initiative competition has already opened up an opportunity for his team to prepare for a real project tender: ‘We appreciate the support provided by the competition’s research committee, and we are grateful that they gave us this opportunity to bring our research ideas to life! We hope that the competition will be the first step in our pursuit of scientific knowledge with the aim of making a practical contribution for the good of humanity.’
Veronika Kim-Istomina
Veronika Kim-Istomina, leader of the project ‘Koreans in the Perm Kama River region: history, traditions, and culture’ (Perm campus), says that the competition was an opportunity for her to finally study a topic of interest: ‘I started this research back in my first year, but the lack of financial support meant that progress was slow. Now that the project has been approved, our team can conduct research at a higher level and make the most of the university’s capabilities.’
Anna Makarova
‘The Research Initiative competition gives our team a unique opportunity to independently organise and conduct research—from the moment an idea appears all the way to the presentation of results,’ explains Anna Makarova, leader of the project ‘Development of an algorithm of the precise restoration of finger movement based on muscle activity for people with disabilities’ (Moscow campus). ‘We believe that participating in this competition will be a great start for us on our quest to create our own product, and will allow us to find a point of intersection between basic and applied research.’
The winning student teams will be able to not only carry out significant research and create research products, but also to lay a foundation for their future academic growth.
Alexander Aksyutin
‘The Research Initiative competition allows our team to bring some long-developing ideas to life,’ says Alexander Aksyutin, leader of the project ‘A cognitive study of pedagogical formats based on the Nashy Penaty private secondary school’ (Moscow campus). ‘We want to study educational formats in even greater depth, uncover hidden problems, and conduct research at the intersection of multiple fields and practices. I hope we will implement our ideas with help from our colleagues. This is just the beginning—now we need to do the work.’
Ivan Gruzdev
According to Ivan Gruzdev, Director of the HSE University Office for Internal Monitoring and Student Academic Development, the audience of the competition continues to grow every year: ‘This year, there were 22 applications from students. These ideas for research projects span a wide range of fields, from social sciences to biology. It is particularly good to see that the competition attracted students not only from HSE University’s Moscow campus, but also from those in Perm and Nizhny Novgorod. The winning research teams have a lot of work ahead of them—we wish them every success!’
Keep up to date with the projects and learn more about the Research Initiative competition on its Telegram channel.
Ivan Gruzdev
Director for Internal Monitoring and Student Academic Development
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