News

The Faculty of Geography and Geoinformation Technology opened at HSE University in 2019, enrolment in the first bachelor’s programme took place in 2020, and the first master’s programme was launched in 2022. Nikolay Kurichev, Dean of the Faculty, describes how the idea to train geographers within the walls of HSE University originated, what results have been achieved, and what difficulties have been encountered over the years.

A few days ago, Retail Night was held as part of informal meetings between master’s students of the HSE Graduate School of Business and business representatives. Ilya Yakubson, Managing Director of the Chizhik hard discounter chain, took part in the event as a guest. The discussion was moderated by Alexander Lebedev, Academic Supervisor of the Master’s programme ‘Retail Management.’

Skilled readers are known to extract information not only from the word they are looking at but from the one directly following it. This phenomenon is called pre-processing. Researchers from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain analysed the eye movements of primary school children and adults during silent reading and found both groups to rely on orthographic, rather than phonological, information in pre-processing an upcoming word. The study has been published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

In the next academic year, HSE University-St Petersburg will open a new master's programme in Data Analytics for Business and Economics. It utilises the combined experience of two other programmes, creating a symbiosis of the strongest and most in-demand courses. Natalia Volkova, Academic Supervisor of the programme, explains what kind of specialists the programme trains, which tracks are available for students, and which soft and hard skills they will gain.

A team of Russian scientists, including HSE MIEM researchers, have presented a 3D model of SARS-CoV-2 S-protein transmembrane (TM) domain. Previously, the TM domain had only been believed to anchor the S-protein in its viral membrane without being involved in rearrangement and fusion with the host cell. Yet according to recent studies, the TM domain appears to have a function in the transmission of genetic information, but its role is not yet fully understood. The researchers believe that the model they have created can contribute to a better understanding of viral mechanisms and potentially lead to the development of novel antiviral drugs. The study has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Graduate students from HSE University’s Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod campuses have created Prezentos—an online shop featuring unique gifts. The students spoke to the HSE News Service about how their master’s programme at HSE University brings its students together and inspires them to create their own commercial projects.

Resilience and well-being in difficult times can be developed via online interventions in the workplace. An international team of researchers from France, the UK, and Russia (with the participation of researchers from the HSE International Laboratory of Positive Psychology of Personality and Motivation) studied the effectiveness of SPARK Resilience, a programme for developing resilience, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the study were published in the PLOS One journal.

On March 15, Judas Everett defended his doctoral dissertation ‘The Effect of the Patterns in the Dissolution of Communism on the Transition to New Systems in Eastern Europe’, which investigates the relationship between the demise of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the quality of democracy in the post-communist regime. The defence took place remotely. His academic supervisor was Professor Andrey Akhremenko of the HSE University School of Politics and Governance at the Faculty of Social Sciences. In his interview, Judas talks about the topic of his research and explains why political science is more important than ever.