News

An international team of researchers, including scholars from HSE University, has discovered that knowledge of a foreign language can improve memory performance and increase automaticity when solving complex tasks. The higher a person’s language proficiency, the stronger the effect. The results have been published in the journal Brain and Cognition.

In early December 2025, the HSE International College of Economics and Finance (HSE ICEF) held a student meeting with Stefan Dürr, founder and President of the EkoNiva Group, at the HSE building on Pokrovsky Bulvar. The entrepreneur spoke about his journey from running a small farm in southern Germany to building the largest agribusiness in Russia, and offered advice to aspiring entrepreneurs on how to succeed in the industry. The event continued a series of meetings between ICEF students and prominent Russian practising economists and business leaders.

In November, HSE University–St Petersburg representatives participated in a series of research and educational events in Malaysia and Indonesia. Read on to find out the results of the trip and why it is especially important for HSE University–St Petersburg to develop academic ties with Southeast Asia.

Russian enterprises rank among the world’s top ten leaders in AI adoption. In 2023, nearly one-third of domestic companies reported using artificial intelligence. According to a new study by Larisa Smirnykh, Professor at the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences, the impact of digitalisation on employment is uneven: while the introduction of AI in small and large enterprises led to a reduction in the number of employees, in medium-sized companies, on the contrary, it contributed to job growth. The article has been published in Voprosy Ekonomiki.

The School of International Regional Studies at the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs (WEIA) held the International Conference ‘The World Majority and the West amid Geoeconomic and Civilisational Transformations.’ This was the seventh time the conference had taken place, bringing together researchers from 13 countries.

Mohammed Yassir Ali Osman, from Sudan, graduated from HSE’s Master’s Programme in Population and Development. He is now a doctoral student at the HSE Doctoral School of Sociology and conducts research at the Laboratory of Social and Demographic Policies at the Vishnevsky Institute of Demography. Recently he presented his dissertation on the migration intention of African students in Russia. In this interview with the HSE News Service, Mohammed Yassir Ali Osman shares the highlights of his research, his future plans after completing his PhD, and his advice for prospective researchers.

Researchers from HSE University and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences analysed seven years of data from the ERG (Arase) satellite and, for the first time, provided a detailed description of a new type of radio emission from near-Earth space—the hectometric continuum, first discovered in 2017. The researchers found that this radiation appears a few hours after sunset and disappears one to three hours after sunrise. It was most frequently observed during the summer months and less often in spring and autumn. However, by mid-2022, when the Sun entered a phase of increased activity, the radiation had completely vanished—though the scientists believe the signal may reappear in the future. The study has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

The Сentre of Digital Technologies for Nature-Based Solutions at HSE University and the Kazakhstan-based company SAFC are planning joint work on the implementation of climate projects in Kazakhstan. Specialists from the HSE centre visited the site of the country’s first forest climate project and signed a cooperation agreement with SAFC.