Research & Expertise

On April 11, Brian McCall, Professor of Education, Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will present at the XVIII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development in a section entitled ‘Evaluation of reforms in education’. Prof. McCall’s research has covered the economics of education, education inequality, and other topics. He spoke with the HSE News Service ahead of his presentation about his research and the trends he currently sees internationally.

The Russian Science Foundation has announced winners of its latest grant competition to support basic scientific research and exploratory scientific research conducted by research teams.

Researchers from the Higher School of Economics (HSE) have developed a novel system for assessing the potential of renewable energy resources. This method can help to assess the future exploitable technical potential of wind and solar PV energy, as well as their capacity to replace exiting generation assets. Furthermore, it can forecast fossil fuel savings and facilitate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Their research has been published in journal Energy: “Wind and Solar PV Technical Potentials: Measurement Methodology and Assessments for Russia”.

Since World War II, people in many countries have enjoyed a better sense of wellbeing, which has resulted in survival values giving way to emancipation values. Threats no longer lurk at every turn, and each new generation sees more opportunities and fewer barriers to empowerment. The book Freedom Rising by LCCR Chief Research Fellow Christian Welzel offers some ideas on how widespread this process is, whether it is irreversible and where human emancipation can lead.

Martha C. Merrill, Associate Professor of Higher Education at Kent State University (USA), will present at the upcoming XVIII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development during a section entitled ‘Education in Russia and CIS countries through the prism of global trends’. She spoke with the HSE News Service ahead of the conference about her extensive research on both Russian higher education and comparative research that she has undertaken in Central Asia.

The new issue of Foresight and STI Governance presents various aspects of the corporate sector’s innovation-based development: approaches to conducting Foresight studies, market evaluation of research-intensive companies, intellectual capital’s impact on firms’ performance. International experts assess the prospects for transboundary academic cooperation in the context of global geopolitical processes, and propose an 'intelligent leadership' model for state universities.

On April 11, Dr Daya Thussu, Professor of International Communication and Co-Director of India Media Centre at the Communication and Media Research Institute (University of Westminster) will speak at the XVIII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development. His presentation, entitled ‘Creative industries in BRICS nations and glocalization of content’, is part of a panel session on Global corporations and local media content producers on newly emerging markets: technological and creative aspects. In addition to his academic role at the University of Westminster, he serves as the Managing Editor of the journal ‘Global Media and Communication’.

Residents of provincial Russian towns put it differently when talking about their towns to Muscovites, foreigners, and tourists from other Russian regions. Such an ‘individual approach’ is spontaneous and may be useful in creating city tourist brands, concluded Nadezhda Radina as a result of her experiment, which involved over 800 residents of Russian provinces.

Leading international academic publisher Palgrave has published the Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations. The team at the HSE Centre for Studies of Civil Society and the Nonprofit Sector (CSCSNS) was involved in preparing this publication: HSE researchers are co-authors of a number of chapters. 

Several studies have indicated that schizophrenic patients are likely to show high levels of nicotine dependence. Scientists from Higher School of Economics (HSE), Institut Pasteur, the CNRS, Inserm and the ENS employed a mouse model to elucidate how nicotine influences cells in the prefrontal cortex. They visualized how nicotine has a direct impact on the restoration of normal activity in nerve cells (neurons) involved in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. These findings were published in a paper that appeared in the journal Nature Medicine.