News

Children of Business Moguls Expect to Retire Early

Ambiguous attitudes held by the heirs of Russian moguls may affect the future of the country's big businesses. On one hand, the children of wealthy Russian business owners have an excellent headstart – they are well-educated and generally share their parents' values. Yet on the other hand, they are not likely to become selfless workaholics. Instead, they tend to be more hedonistic than their parents and less inclined to devote their entire life to building the family business. Most Russian business heirs expect to retire early and switch to hobbies, recreation and entertainment in their mid-life. Elena Rozhdestvenskaya, professor of the HSE Faculty of Social Sciences, is the first Russian researcher to study the mindsets of heirs of biggest Russian fortunes.

Art as a Research Tool

The First International Summer Workshop on Alternative Methods in Social Research, which took place from July 13th to 19th 2015, in Barcelona, was dedicated to hybrid methods of evaluation in the arts and life sciences. Anna Paukova, lecturer at the HSE School of Psychology (Department of Psychology of Personality) participated in the event.

Baltic Practice Turns to the East

The Baltic Practice International Summer School, held by the HSE Public Policy Department, has celebrated its 15th anniversary. Its organizers and participants recently spoke about what’s most important for people to know about the Baltic Practice, and about why, after 15 years, the school is changing direction.

Post-Soviet Authoritarian Regimes Ineffective

More than twenty years after the collapse of the socialist bloc, virtually none of the post-communist countries have attained the level of socioeconomic development characteristic of advanced democracies. Likewise, none of the post-communist countries have emerged as successful autocracies with high-quality public institutions, such as those found in Singapore or Oman. Professor Andrei Melville, Dean of the HSE Faculty of Social Sciences, and Mikhail Mironyuk, Associate Professor of the HSE School of Political Science, examine possible reasons why it is so.

Companies Supported by Government More Optimistic about Investment Climate

Over the past three years, the business climate in Russia has improved for companies with a long planning horizon and for those receiving government support. State-owned companies, however, have been worse off after losing their privileges and facing a level playing field, according to Andrei Yakovlev, director of the HSE Institute for Industrial and Market Studies, Irina Levina, research fellow at the same Institute, and Anastasia Kazun, postgraduate student at the HSE Faculty of Social Sciences.

Sixth Summer School in Business Psychology

Sixth Summer School in Business Psychology
In August 2015, the Sixth Summer School on Business Psychology entitled ‘Factors and Conditions for Organizational Change’ took place in Alupka. 

Coffee, R, and Big Data: Summer Programme in Methods of Social Research in Ann Arbor

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Programme in Quantitative Methods of Social Research is in all likelihood the most prestigious summer school in the social sciences. Every year, the University of Michigan welcomes thousands of young researchers who are looking to develop their research skills under the supervision of world renowned professionals. Maxim Rudnev, Leading Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Comparative Studies in Mass Consciousness, shared his experience of the programme.

Science Searches for New Ways of Interacting with the General Public

It is increasingly common for scientists to engage the general public in dialogue and involve people in research rather than communicating with them in a haughty or condescending manner. We are witnessing the hybridization of research institutes: researchers are more actively collaborating with the media, civil society, and the customers for research, HSE Associate Professor Roman Abramov and Senior Lecturer at the Department for the Analysis of Social Institutions Andrei Kozhanov noted in an article.

Social Contracts: No Single Solution to Poverty

Encouraging entrepreneurship, providing social support services and helping people find jobs are all part of a new ‘social contract’ programme introduced across Russia to assist poor families in becoming financially self-sufficient. Using formal contracts to encourage low-income people to engage in economic activity is proving to be more effective than welfare handouts, according to researchers of the HSE Centre for Studies of Income and Living Standards.

Russians Vulnerable to Ischemia and Stroke

Over the past two decades, the average life expectancy in Russia has increased by 2.3 years for women and 1.4 years for men, according to a recently published paper based on the WHO's Global Burden of Disease (GBD) assessment – a major epidemiological study by a group of international experts, including Vasily Vlassov, Professor of the HSE Department of Health Care Administration and Economy.