Research & Expertise news at HSE University

On May 20, Valeria Kasamara, HSE Vice Rector, took part in a round table on the role of career development centres at Russian universities and students’ career trajectories. This event was part of the international conference on Education and World Cities that HSE University held in Saint Petersburg from May 19—21. The round table was attended by government officials from Saint Petersburg, employees of career development centres at leading Russian universities, and representatives of different industries.

Experts from the Institute of Education of HSE University examined the effectiveness of five courses of one of the largest Russian online education services, Yandex.Practicum. The study showed that 71.1% of graduates found employment, and more than half of them became employed within two months after graduation.

Educational Studies, an academic journal founded by HSE University in 2004, has become the first Russian journal to enter the first quartile in Education in Scopus. This success relies on high requirements and thorough selection of publications, when the editorial board tries to select not just good papers, but particularly innovative studies.

A year ago, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns caused Russian universities to switch to distance learning. Emergency digitalisation, embracing new teaching and learning formats and switching to remote teacher-student communication — all of this was a challenge, but the universities found ways to cope. Students also learned some vital lessons outside of the curriculum. This unusual, challenging situation gave rise to various fears and concerns about distance education — and also highlighted what remains essential to the learning process, no matter its mode. 

Climate change-induced ice melting in the Arctic has led to contradictions in the assessment of Russia’s rights in the region. As ice cover diminishes, Russia may be losing its influence on the territories that it has historically developed. This is partially due to the changing width of territorial waters by low-water lines. However, there are alternative legally valid ways to establish fair borders, which are described by researchers of the HSE Institute of Ecology in their paper ‘Prospects for the evolution of the system of baselines in the Arctic’.

The British Educational Research Association, BERA, has announced the winners of its Early Career Researchers Award, founded this year to recognize emerging researchers. The new award’s first two winners are Saule Bekova, Research Fellow at theInstitute of Education of the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, and Binwei Lu of Durham University (UK). In the announcement, the organizing committee praised them as ‘outstanding scholars’ and noted the potential significance of their research for the field of education.

Moscow is not only Russia’s official capital, but its creative capital as well. 54% of the added value of the country’s creative industries is generated here. This was one of the findings presented in the report, ‘Moscow’s Creative Economy in Figures’, prepared jointly by HSE researchers and the Moscow Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development.

A scientist from HSE University has developed an image recognition algorithm that works 40% faster than analogues. It can speed up real-time processing of video-based image recognition systems. The results of the study have been published in the journal Information Sciences.