Tag "expertise"

The coronavirus pandemic is transforming modern society, reviving old social practices and formulas such as the Russian ‘flat-car-dacha’ principle, while opening new technological frontiers and creating new cultural skills. Professor Vitaly Kurennoy, Head of HSE’s School of Cultural Studies, discusses these issues in an op-ed for Izvestiia. Read the full translation of the article below.

Imports account for over 15% of about a quarter of Russian manufacturing industries’ expenditures. With the ruble weakening in value, manufacturers’ expenses on raw materials and components they have to purchase from abroad will rise, which will likely bring their profits to zero. According to projections by the HSE Centre of Development Institute, 64% of import-dependent industries run the risk of becoming unprofitable if the exchange rate reaches 80 rubles to the dollar.

Hearing about research advances in medicine, biology, or physics in public discourse is a common occurrence. However, the question of whether scholarly activity in the social sciences and the humanities should be popularized has always been left unanswered. What are the features of communication between humanities and society and the media? Are different fields of knowledge popularized differently? Physicists, linguists, sociologists, science communicators, and journalists discussed this question on the eve of the Day of Russian Science at the Total Dictation Conference in Moscow.

On January 29 HSE experts participated in a seminar on ‘Skills and Returns on Education in the Russian Federation’ at the World Bank office in Moscow. The seminar was held as part of the analytical support programme for Russia’s national priority project ‘Education’.

HSE University hosted a Russian-Chinese meeting on ‘Social policy as a tool for combating poverty and developing human capital’. Representatives of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, the World Bank, the Russian Pension Fund, the government of Tatarstan, and HSE University researchers evaluated the social policies of both countries, shared effective measures for combating and eliminating poverty.

On December 4, a forum on developments in science, technology and innovation (STI) was held in Pretoria, South Africa. There, a 10-year development plan was presented, based on an S&T forecast commissioned by the South African government and developed by the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge.

After conducting nationwide university competitions as part of the Digital Economy in the Russian Federation Programme, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science has selected a number of Russian universities to launch new international research centres and develop digital university models.

More than 40% of Russian citizens consider changing their place of residence due to environmental problems. This was a statistic cited by Lyaila Sinyatullina, Head of the Department of Advanced Studies at HSE University’s Institute for Public Administration and Governance, at a roundtable dedicated to an environmental information bill that will be reviewed by the Russian State Duma.

The report entitled ‘Twelve Solutions for New Education’, prepared by the Higher School of Economics and the Centre for Strategic Development, was presented at the XIX April International Academic Conference. Professors Martin Carnoy and Tomasso Agasisti, international experts on education and conference guests, have shared their views on the issues and initiatives highlighted in the report.

Educational media is expanding rapidly in Russia, while scientists are giving more lectures on popular science to packed auditoriums and more scientific festivals are taking place than ever before. But do these efforts actually pay off? As part of a monitoring survey on innovative behaviour in Russia, experts from the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) have found that over a five-year period spent measuring the scientific literacy of the Russian public, the percentage of people who find it difficult to answer ‘elementary school’ questions – for example, questions about the Earth’s core or continental drift – is steadily declining. But questions any more specific than that continue to leave people scratching their heads.