Research & Expertise

Academic and expert in the field of international higher education, Philip Altbach has been made Honorary Professor in a ceremony at HSE. Altbach began to study education in his youth because he believed it was a key factor to bring about change in society. Is it possible to take educational models which work well in some countries and copy them in others without making any alterations? What good are rankings and what shouldn’t we sacrifice for their sake? What gives HSE its competitive edge? Professor Altbach talked about all these issues in an interview with HSE News.

The only way to detect weaknesses in one’s own ideas is to expose them to criticism from colleagues, says Eric Maskin, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2007, Chairman of the HSE International Advisory Committee, and chief researcher at the International Laboratory of Decision Choice and Analysis. The HSE news service recently spoke with him and Fuad Aleskerov, head of the Laboratory, about the the value of other people's opinions, joint research projects and opportunities for international cooperation in our time.

From November 14 - 24th a series of lectures on 'Diversity and Uniformity in Linguistic Sound Systems' by Ian Maddieson, Adjunct Research Professor at the University of New Mexico, Adjunct Professor Emeritus at the University of California was held at the HSE School of Linguistics. The course was dedicated to the phonetic diversity of languages and included eight lectures. During the series, Professor Maddieson talked to HSE English News Editor, Anna Chernyakhovskaya’s questions about his research into the relations between language and environment.

The 5th annual LCSR conference was organized  from 15th - 21st November at HSE. One of the keynote speakers at the conference on Cultural and Economic Changes under Cross-national Perspective is the Director of the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute at Qatar University, Darwish Al Emadi. Dr. Al Emadi’s talk was on The Challenges of Surveying in Countries with Unorthodox Population Pyramids. He spoke to HSE English News about his long term goal to improve education on a global level and about his cooperation with HSE.

On November 13-14 a meeting of the Executive Committee and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the World Values Survey Association was held at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. The main mission of the meeting was the design of the master questionnaire for the new wave of the World Values Survey to be launched in 2017. World Values Survey scholars are also participating in the LCSR 5th International Annual Research Conference 'Cultural and Economic changes under cross-national perspective' which is currently underway at HSE. Christian Haerpfer, President of the World Values Association, has talked to HSE News Service about the survey and the preparation for its new wave.

On November 6 and 7 ICEF and the International Laboratory of Financial Economics (LFE) held the Fourth International Moscow Finance Conference. Christian Julliard, Academic Director of LFE, has talked to HSE News Service about the conference and about the education of future economists at the International College of Economics and Finance.

Dr. Angelina Lucento is a Research Fellow at HSE International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences. Her work focusses on art and war. In this interview with HSE English News she explains how family history brought her to research WWII and Russian culture and tells us why Moscow suits her so well for living and working as an international academic in her field.

Professor Martin Carnoy of Stanford University and visiting professor at the Higher School of Economics, and Tatiana Khavenson, Research Fellow at the HSE Institute of Education, were among the authors of the report ‘An Analysis of the Impact of Education Policies on Student Achievement in the United States’, which was recently presented in Washington, DC. The key provisions of this report are of use when it comes to analyzing the situation in Russian education.

Professor Paul Kind, University of Leeds, led the International Centre for Health Economics, Management and Policy seminar at the HSE St Petersburg.

Ken M. Sheldon is Academic Supervisor at the HSE International Laboratory of Positive Psychology of Personality and Motivation. He talked to HSE English News about his collaboration with HSE and about working in an international environment.