News

Most international students in Russia come from CIS countries, or former Soviet republics in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe. The preserved social and cultural links promote this, as well as students’ good command of Russian. Students from outside the former Soviet Union come to Russia primarily due to economic reasons and the strong reputation of Russia’s leading universities. At the same time, however, they often see Russia as an unsafe country and consider it a backup plan.

Noah’s Ark below decks, a utopia about the happy coexistence of all life forms, the universe of tinder-dating — HSE ART GALLERY’s new exposition has turned the gallery into a sound theatre, a mix of fictional and real worlds, where visitors are transported by sound. The unique sound exhibition ‘Sonic Fiction: Designing Sonic Spaces’ was created by students of HSE Art and Design School (of the ‘Sound Art and Sound Design’ Programme and others) as well as famous Russian and foreign artists. The artists and curators told the news service about the concept of the exposition, their work, and sound and neural networks.

On February 9, the HSE International Laboratory 'Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective' hosted Janet Hartley (London School of Economics), who presented her recent monograph The Volga: A History of Russia’s Greatest River. The presentation was part of a joint lecture series between the Laboratory and The Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation. HSE news service spoke with Janet Hartley about her interest in Russia, her experience travelling and doing research in Russia, and the books she has written on Russia.

A team of researchers from Russia and Israel applied a new algorithm to classify the severity of autistic personality traits by studying subjects’ brain activity. The article ‘Brief Report: Classification of Autistic Traits According to Brain Activity Recoded by fNIRS Using ε-Complexity Coefficients’ is published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Over the past quarter-century, the socially accepted reproductive norm has hardly changed in Russia: most people still believe that two children per family is the ideal. The reality, however, is more diverse, and both largeand childfree families are increasingly commonplace. A new study by HSE demographers looks at changes in public opinion in Russia between 1995 and 2019 concerning the optimal number of children in the family.

The ageing population may turn into a serious challenge despite seniors' improving physical and mental health. Rostislav Kapelyushnikov, Deputy Director of the HSE Center for Labor Market Studies and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, looked into the causes and possible consequences of falling birth rates and longer life expectancy.

Russian researchers from HSE University have studied a hypothesis regarding the capability of the visual system to automatically categorize objects (i.e., without requiring attention span). The results of a simple and beautiful experiment confirmed this assumption. The paper was published in the journal Scientific Reports. The study was supported by a Russian Science Foundation grant.

The annual awards ceremony of the Student Research Paper Competition (NIRS) was held on February 8, Russian Science Day. This year, 165 people received awards, including not only HSE students but also contestants from Saint Petersburg State University, Moscow State University, Far Eastern Federal University, Mount Holyoke College (USA), and other universities. Another 160 participants became laureates of the competition, with 1,924 papers submitted in total.