Society News at HSE University

Alexey Parakhonyak graduated from HSE in 2004 and now works as an associate professor at Lincoln College, Oxford. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Parakhonyak explained why HSE attracted the best professors right from the start, how Erasmus University teaches its PhD students, how to win students’ hearts and what, besides the university, makes the city of Oxford interesting.

In October, HSE University held the 10th Conference of Civil Society Researchers, organized by the Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Nonprofit Sector. The main topic of this anniversary forum was ‘The impact of the crisis on the development of the nonprofit sector and citizen self-organization in Russia: New realities and prospects’. The conference was co-organized by the Association "European University for Volunteering" (EUV) and the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV), a long-time partner of the centre.

What are the outcomes of growing inequality? How much inequality is there in Russian healthcare and education? What does Russian society think about inequality? (Spoiler: that it’s excessively high and unfair.) These questions and many others were discussed by Russian and French researchers at the conference ‘Socio-economic Inequality and Poverty in the Modern World: Measures, Dynamics, and Prospects in an Age of Uncertainty’.

The two winners of the Andrej Bremzen competition to correctly predict all three awardees are Ivan Susin, a Research Assistant at the HSE International Laboratory for Experimental and Behavioural Economics, and Maxim Ananyev, a researcher at the University of Melbourne. They both named David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens, and will now receive prizes from the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences.

Choosing a specific subject to major in at a university does not mean you will never become a ‘specialist with a broad profile’. Vladimir Todorov, graduate of the HSE Oriental Studies bachelor’s programme, once studied and worked in China, but has leveraged that international experience to build a successful career as a journalist and now works as chief editor of the Lenta.ru portal. In this interview with Success Builder, he explains how an ex-pat can earn a living in China, why HSE teaches students about the ‘living’ East and how to ‘retool’ from Sinologist to journalist.

‘There’s no point in sending a girl to a maths school—unless it’s to find a smart husband.’ This is just one stereotype that must be combatted, explained Alexandra Skripchenko, Dean of the HSE Faculty of Mathematics, in a discussion held as part of Forbes Woman Day—an international forum on gender equality in business, politics, and society. Participants of the forum discussed the changing role of women in science, a field that still suffers from gender discrimination.

The Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair was held in September in the Central Manege. Six graduates and a student of the HSE Art and Design School presented their works at the event. Yulia Yusma, Director of HSE ART GALLERY supervised the projects.

Someone who has achieved global success does not customarily speak about their mistakes and frustrations. But it is impossible to have a successful business without failures because they point the way to the correct strategy. Andrey Zakharchenko, who holds a master’s degree from the Faculty of Management (now the HSE Graduate Business School) and is the founder and director of the Standard Trade logistics company, told Success Builder how his deepest crisis led him to success, the nature of trade relations with China and what helped his team achieve record indicators during the pandemic.