I hope to build more connections with other researchers...

10-й выпуск англоязычного приложения «The HSE LooK» посвящён истории и планам развития рекрутинга постдоков в ВШЭ. Своими впечатлениями о работе в Вышке делится доцент факультета Лили Ди Пуппо.

: I developed an interest in corruption and the fight against corruption, which led me to examine the relations between governments and international organisations and, more generally, informality. I’m interested in studying the state and I use anthropological approaches to do it. I was able to deepen all these aspects of my research during my year as a post doc and now I have developed a new research idea on religion and Islamic education in Russia. I think this is quite important in this region of the former Soviet Union and Eurasia and it’s very rich – there are so many religions coexisting in Russia, it’s a very interesting topic and there is still so much to study. In the future I would like to link these two research fields together looking at religion in relation to the role of the modern state.
I came together with two other post-docs and back then we were a part of the Faculty of Sociology. That was two years ago. Now postdocs are a part of research centres: the idea is that they should be more integrated with a team of researchers. We concentrated on publications. Postdoc time in general is the time to focus on writing articles. One of us set up a working group to discuss our article projects and how to get them published in peer-reviewed journals. In our group we are staying in contact by reviewing each other’s works. So, that is a good outcome of our postdoc activities here. One year is a short time. It was productive in the sense of writing articles. But it’s too limited to develop more long-term projects – you have time to write two or three articles and start developing further research ideas. A good thing to do for a postdoc is to develop contacts that they will be able to use in the future. Postdocs are often busy applying for jobs and sometimes it may be really time consuming, so you have a lot to do in one year.
I hope to build more connections with other researchers. So my plans will be linked to these possible research projects I would initiate with other colleagues. I would also consider starting a bigger research project connecting German colleagues and the HSE. Next year we are also starting an international Master’s programme on comparative social research at the Faculty. I will contribute by teaching. This is only one of the projects I am taking part in at the moment. I also work with partners from other European universities. Post ScriptumLili Di Puppo: I stayed at the HSE because of my research. In particular I will soon start field research in Russia. Since I was here for a year I could see what the HSE is like and I was quite happy with many things here: the research, the environment, the colleagues. Everything worked really well. I also see that the HSE is well connected on the international level, so I can take advantage of this. For example, we have money to go to conferences which is important to connect internationally. Also, I have colleagues coming from different universities around the world. Not only because of my research in Russia, but the university as such is a good place to continue my academic career in the sense of building research projects with other international partners. Since I have a three-year contract, now I can develop my new research ideas and start new projects. I can deepen my interest on corruption and informality, but I can also develop a new research focus – examining religion in Russia. I have enough time now to start a new field research.