News

On December 20, the students of the International Preparatory Year programme at HSE’s Moscow campus got together to usher in the New Year in true Russian style. They all first arrived in Moscow this September with zero or very limited knowledge of Russian. So, their programme started with an intensive course of Russian as a Foreign Language. Now, three months later, they have already mastered enough Russian to make mini-presentations, perform sketches, take part in a Russian culture quiz, and solve Russian riddles.

The exposition ‘Osip Mandelstam – End of the Road’ located in the HSE building at 20 Myasnitskaya Street in Moscow reconstructs the final 11 weeks of the poet’s life and profiles many of his contemporaries.

Sociologists at HSE showed that preschool education has its own hidden curriculum: kindergarten teachers transmit social norms to children, including conservative ideas of femininity and masculinity. Girls are expected to have “proper” character and behavior, to be obedient and pretty, take an interest in music and dance, and to like the color pink.

The 18^th issue of Higher Education in Russia and Beyond (HERB) journal is available online. HERB is a quarterly informational journal published by HSE University since 2014 in cooperation with Boston College Center of International Higher Education. The current issue explores the issue of academic inbreeding.

On December 18, Sergey Kadochnikov, Director of HSE University – St Petersburg, and Georgy Vilinbakhov, Deputy General Director of the State Hermitage Museum, signed an agreement on cooperation between the university and the museum in the education and research.

HSE is a truly international university - every year it attracts students from all over the world who come to Russia on exchange or enrol in English-taught graduate or undergraduate programmes. HSE News Service has talked to some of HSE’s full degree international students about their decision to apply to HSE and their experience living and studying in Moscow.

In order to research human capital, Lilia Ovcharova, a renowned scholar and expert on social policy, has been appointed Vice Rector responsible for applied human capital research at HSE. Human capital development studies are key priority for our university.

Scientists of the Higher School of Economics, Indiana University, and École normale supérieure clarified how alcohol influences the dopamine and inhibitory cells in the midbrain that are involved in the reward system and the formation of dependency on addictive drugs. The results of the study were published in the article ‘Dynamical ventral tegmental area circuit mechanisms of alcohol-dependent dopamine release’.