Education

Most of those travelling to Berlin do not like the city, because there is not so much architectural heritage or historical attractions besides Reichstag and the Wall. After living there for a year there is the feeling that Berlin is not about sightseeing but about the vibe, feeling of freedom and cosmopolitanism, street art and techno music.

We spent about 10 months in Germany, the first two semesters of the Double Degree Master's Program of the Higher School of Economics and the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB). We would like to tell you about the program and about our first year in Berlin in particular.  Our education is dedicated to innovation studies. We learn to conduct research of the infrastructure of innovation, economic policy and business support measures, technology development, technology management in large and small companies and high-tech entrepreneurship. The program in Berlin is called Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, the program in Moscow is Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation. The programs of partner universities successfully complement each other, but there are more reasons to choose the Double Degree apart from coordinating study plans.

One word that sums up my journey in Russia so far is “spectacular”. It can say that “the Master’s Programme in STI at HSE has been a major turning point in my career”. The three main opportunities that the Master’s Programme has provided me are, prospect of an exciting career through a multidisciplinary programme, develop myself as a researcher in field of science, technology and innovation, study in an environment that has global perspective.

Master’s Programme Students of HSE ISSEK “Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation” for 10 weeks from January to March were doing their internships at Moscow Agency of Innovations. During the internship four students found several best technological solutions for optimizing the city transport, power grids, healthcare and other systems.

In terms of the Research Seminar course, two guest scholars gave an academic speech to the second-year Master students of the “Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation” programme. Prof. Jeong Dong Lee (Seoul National University, Korea) devoted his presentation to capability transition failure from implementation capability and concept design capability as a source of middle income trap. Prof. Liu Youfa (Shanghai Institute of International Studies, China) discussed relations between China and Russia through the prism of One Belt One Road Initiative. Seven groups of students wrote a group academic essay related to one of these topics. Three essays were awarded  "Best Academic Essay" certificates and online publication.

On 7 and 14 November, 2016, the ISSEK second-year Master’s students had a chance to walk across  a “creative bridge” between Moscow and the UK: to attend online lectures by one of the world’s creativity leaders – Tudor Rickards – Emeritus Professor of Creativity and Organizational Change at the Alliance Manchester Business School, Alex Osborn Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the author of numerous books and articles on creativity, and the co-founder of the academic journal “Creativity and Innovation Management”. The online lectures took place within the course “Managing Creativity and Innovation” by Dr. Mikhail Gershman.

This summer Alexander Sokolov, director of the HSE ISSEK Foresight Centre, took part in the International Panel of Futurists (IPF) in Morocco. The Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES) invited a pool of experts to suggest long-term scenarios for the country’s development, taking into account emerging global technology and social trends and the quite strong role the traditional way of life plays in this Maghreb country.