News

A team of scientists at HSE FCS and Yandex Research has proposed a method that reduces computational costs and accelerates text-to-image generation in diffusion models without compromising quality. These models currently set the standard for text-to-image generation, but their use is limited by high computational loads, the company said in a statement.

The HSE University International Laboratory for Mirror Symmetry and Automorphic Forms and the Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA) held a joint online conference on mathematical physics. The results of the laboratory research presented at the event will be published in leading academic journals.

The HSE Faculty of Urban and Regional Development acted as a partner in organising the first International Transport and Logistics Forum, held in St Petersburg in early April and bringing together more than 6,000 participants from 82 countries. With the faculty’s support, a key session was held entitled ‘A Driverless Future: How Driverless Transport is Changing the Concept of Spatial Organisation from the City to the State’ and moderated by Russian Minister of Transport Andrei Nikitin.

How can states maintain governability and stability in a world where established rules are rapidly losing their force? Prof. Ali Farazmand of Florida Atlantic University answered this question in a presentation delivered at the XXVI April International Academic Conference named after Evgeny Yasin. The scholar proposed examining the transformation of the global order through the lens of two ‘mega-shifts’—from the rise of global corporate capitalism to the emerging multipolarity of today—and demonstrated why this transition between eras requires fundamentally new approaches to governance.

Interdisciplinary research is a defining feature of modern science, and this trend is especially pronounced in the field of quantum technologies. Physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology form the core fields of research at the Centre for Quantum Metamaterials of the HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM). Prof. Alexei Vagov, director of the centre, discusses its key activities, which focus on exploring the prospects of creating materials with predefined properties through manipulating their structure at the quantum level.

Experts from the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge have examined industrial PhD programmes across 19 countries worldwide. The analysis shows that the key components of an effective model include co-funding by universities, industry, and government; dual academic supervision; and flexible intellectual property arrangements. The findings have been published in Foresight and STI Governance.

HSE University and SIBUR have opened admissions for the joint track ‘New Polymer Materials and Petrochemistry’ within the Master’s programme in Chemistry of Molecular Systems and Materials. The programme will prepare specialists with a solid scientific foundation and the project management skills required in the petrochemical industry. Studies will begin in September 2026 at the HSE Faculty of Chemistry.

Rufino Haroldo Locon, from Guatemala, graduated from the Master's in System Programming at the Faculty of Computer Science in 2024, and now he is a first-year PhD student at MIEM. In his interview with the HSE News Service, he spoke on high-performance computing, the role literature plays in his life, and his plans after graduation.