Fan Minlan, a 25-year-old from the coastal city of Zhangzhou in southeastern China, has recently graduated from the HSE Master’s Programme in Population and Development. In her interview with the HSE News Service, Fan Minlan speaks about her decision to enrol at HSE University, the challenges of speaking Russian, her career plans, and the love story that started with her studies.

An international team of researchers including scientists from HSE University has experimentally demonstrated that individuals with bipolar disorder tend to perceive the world as more volatile than it actually is, which often leads them to make irrational decisions. The scientists suggest that their findings could lead to the development of more accurate methods for diagnosing and treating bipolar disorder in the future. The article has been published in Translational Psychiatry.

Dilmurod Kholmatov, from Tashkent (Uzbekistan), is a student of the Master’s in Law of International Trade and Dispute Resolution at the HSE University–Moscow Faculty of Law. He has finished his first year of studies and plans to pursue a career in international commercial arbitration after graduation. In his interview, Dilmurod explains how the programme is preparing him to achieve his career ambitions, explains why student involvement in academic conferences is important, and talks about taking part in a charity race.

On July 7, 2025, HSE University hosted a delegation from China. The delegation, led by Wei Guotan, Chair of the University Council of Communication University of Zhejiang (CUZ), was welcomed by HSE Vice Rector Dmitry Zemtsov, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Creative Industries Tatiana Rivchun, and representatives of the HSE Institute for Creative Industries Development and the HSE Art and Design School—the initiators of the partnership with their Chinese colleagues.

In 1968, Paul Chernoff proposed a theorem that allows for the approximate calculation of operator semigroups, mathematical constructions that describe how the states of multiparticle systems change over time. The method is based on a sequence of steps which make the result increasingly accurate. But until now it was unclear how quickly these steps lead to the result and what influences this speed. This problem has been fully solved for the first time by Oleg Galkin and Ivan Remizov from the Nizhny Novgorod campus of HSE University.

On July 6–7, 2025, the 17th BRICS Summit took place in Rio de Janeiro. For the first time in the organisation’s history, representatives of civil society from BRICS countries participated. HSE Vice Rector, Head of the BRICS Expert Council–Russia, and Co-Chair of the Russian Chapter the BRICS Civil Forum Victoria Panova attended the meeting of the bloc’s national leaders.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the HSE International Preparatory Year programme. The programme offers a one-year foundation course for international applicants preparing to enter Russian universities. HSE lecturers help future students acquire the knowledge and skills needed to successfully undertake a degree programme in Russia.

Celestina Adu, from Ghana, is pursuing her Master’s in Economics and Economic Policy at the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences. Recently, she won silver at a scientific student conference in Nizhny Novgorod. In her interview, she delves into her research on AI and its impact on education, offering advice for prospective international students based on her experiences in Russia.

The International Summer Institute on AI in Education has opened in Shanghai. The event is organised by the HSE Institute of Education in partnership with East China Normal University (ECNU). More than 50 participants and key speakers from over ten countries across Asia, Europe, North and South America have gathered to discuss the use of AI technologies in education and beyond.