Igor Agamirzian

Alarmist forecasts have not come true: the Russian IT industry did not suffer as many losses due to the pandemic as had been expected. But the pandemic increased the need for digital products and made some old problems more acute. What should be done to accelerate the industry’s development? Participants of a seminar at HSE University attempted to answer this question.

This year, the Expert Analytical Centre’s ranking of Russian entrepreneurial universities evaluated 46 universities, 18 of which are participants of Russia’s 5-100 Project. In the ranking, HSE, together with Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University, took 2^nd-4^th places, while MIPT ranked first. The ranking’s methodology places special emphasis on startups launched by university graduates, the number of founding graduates at these companies, and the amount of investments these projects have received.

The digital era, which has come to stay, is creating demand for ever more competent managers for innovation and R&D. The English-taught master’s programme in Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation offered by HSE University enables its graduates to pursue careers in top IT corporations such as Google and Yandex, research institutions and universities, government agencies and international organizations. It also prepares them to launch successful start-ups.

HSE University has taken the first place in the ranking of entrepreneurial universities and business schools by Expert Analysis Centre. The ranking’s evaluation criteria include startups that were launched by alumni of economics or business programmes.

On June 24-28, HSE University – St Petersburg hosted the International University Startups & Spin-Offs Festival (HSE Fest). Young entrepreneurs from Tallinn University of Technology received the first prize of 10,000 USD for further development of their startup project, Timey. The startup company produces small-scale chemical indicators showing whether food products are stored and transported at the right temperature.

A new supercomputer, which has been recently set up at MIEM, will allow the university to carry out high quality research in deep learning and mathematical modeling. The computer was ranked sixth in the April Top-50 ranking of supercomputers in Russia.

As part of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science fifth anniversary celebration at Mercury Moscow City Tower, Ilya Segalovich Scholarships were awarded.

The Moscow City Department of Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Higher School of Economics held a joint field foresight session in the scope of setting up the Moscow Innovation and Production Cluster. More than 200 experts — representatives of the research and education community, innovative businesses, and public authorities discussed priority areas for development of the capital city’s S&T sector, global trends affecting the city’s economy, and incentives and cooperation mechanisms which would help to make a technological leap.

Contemporary universities are becoming not only centres for education and research, but also hubs for entrepreneurship. Igor Agamirzian, HSE Vice President, Head of the Department for Management of Innovation, spoke about the development of the HSE’s innovation infrastructure, about attracting students to technological business projects, and about the master’s programme ‘Corporate Research, Development and Innovation Management’.

On June 4-5, the Development of Parliamentarism International Forum was held in Moscow. HSE experts took part in the forum organization, with several research departments from the university providing programming support for the event.

On January 24, 2018, the Higher School of Economics jointly with RVC JSC held an expert discussion on indicators and instruments of the government’s policy of innovative development, designed for the National Report on Innovation in Russia — 2017.

HSE will launch a new project called Data Culture in September 2017. Starting their very first year, HSE bachelor’s students will learn to work with data, and students in a number of programmes will also become familiarised with methods of machine-learning and artificial intelligence.

On March 15, 2017, HSE hosted the annual Start-up of the Year awards ceremony, organized by the HSE Business Incubator. Five projects featuring unique online and offline technologies won awards.

The Vice President's responsibilities include working on the development strategy for the HSE's innovative ecosystem, building relationships with the technology industry, and creating mechanisms of feedback from employers which will be used in adjusting the competency requirements for university graduates.