Research & Expertise

Settling new territories and the northern regions, and erecting new cities and giant industrial facilities constituted the bright facade of the Soviet Union. But the story behind the scenes concerned the people’s health. The populace paid a high personal price for being able to deliver triumphant reports on the construction of socialism, and the consequences of those hardships are felt to this day. Using a study by researchers from HSE and the Semashko National Institute of Public Health, IQ looks at why the era of stagnation was a period of increased illness and mortality.

Risk-takers are thought to be more likely to set up and grow their own ventures because business involves many risks. This does not apply to all entrepreneurial situations, but only to those where people have realized that running their own business is something they really want, not something they are pushed to do.

The decision to create the laboratory was based on the results of an open competition organised by HSE University. The winner of the competition was the project ‘The role of non-coding RNA in facilitating active ageing’ led by Maxim Shkurnikov, Associate Professor of the HSE University Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology.

On January 10-11, metaphysics negativity research group from the HSE University School of Philosophy held its first international event, an online conference entitled ‘Defining Nothingness’. One of the members of the organizing committee, as well as some of the international participants share their impressions and talk about their research.

The HSE Centre for Student Academic Development, in cooperation with the Student Development Office and Ingroup CTC, held a large-scale student science festival in December. Read on to learn about the outcomes of the event and the Centre’s projects for early 2022, including discussions about science, how not to get lost in the academic world, and new competitions.

HSE University has launched a new International Laboratory for the Study and Assessment of Dangerous Geophysical Phenomena. Alexander Kostinskiy, Head of the Laboratory and Deputy Director of HSE MIEM, explains the laboratory’s future work, its important research and practical applications, and the role of international cooperation in the new laboratory.

On December 27, Andrey Maslov was appointed Director of the HSE Centre for African Studies. In his interview with the HSE News Service, Mr. Maslov talks about the Centre’s objectives, whether HSE students will be engaged in the Centre’s activities, Russian-African relations and the practicalities of doing business in African markets.

At the end of December 2021, the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology (LSES) at HSE University held its traditional Christmas Cinema Seminar entitled ‘Where are universities going?’ Participants discussed ‘The Chair’, a TV series created by David Benioff and Daniel Brett Weiss, authors of ‘Game of Thrones’. 2021 marked the 20^th anniversary of the Christmas seminar, which LSES has held to discuss hot-button issues after watching famous Russian and foreign films.

The concept of creativity varies by culture, and this is reflected in the results of creative activity. This fact was confirmed by researchers from the HSE Laboratory for Creativity and Multilingualism who studied creative assignments carried out by students from Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

Vladimir Shchur, the Head and a Senior Research Fellow at the International Laboratory of Statistical and Computational Genomics, talks about the lab, its research projects and their practical applications.