Integrating Russia’s academic community into the larger international community, internationalizing Russian academic journals, and improving the quality of publications and research – these are the ultimate priorities of a new project the HSE is participating in called the Russian Science Citation Index. The project is being carried out on Web of Science, a leading global search engine for academic publications. By the end of next year, a national database is to be created that comprises the best Russian journals and publications from the last ten years. The database will undoubtedly become a part of the international publication space.
Twenty-five million Russians would be prepared to move from cities to the countryside if offered the same living standards in terms of income and available infrastructure. While these conditions cannot be met in Russia at the moment, it is still possible for the government to take steps to encourage urban dwellers to move to rural communities, according to the study Motives, Conditions and Consequences of Migration from the Cities to the Countryside in Russia by Maria Neuvazhaeva, Masters' graduate of the HSE's Faculty of Sociology.
The 2008-2009 financial crisis could have affected people's values; however, researchers have not yet found any such changes in Europe. A study by Maksim Rudnev and Vladimir Magun of the HSE's Laboratory for Comparative Studies in Mass Consciousness and Peter Schmidt, former head of the HSE's Laboratory for Socio-Cultural Research, suggests that the recent financial crisis may have a delayed effect on society's values.
Professor Gerrod Parrott from Georgetown University has come to the HSE for a brief visit to deliver a series of lectures to master’s students at the Faculty of Psychology. On October 17 he also gave a public lecture on ‘Effects of American and Russian Cultures on Emotions’. The aim of the presentation was to introduce several research topics, describe preliminary findings and explore possibilities of collaboration with Russian researchers in this field.
Migrant workers in the CIS are vulnerable in terms of pension rights. The recipient country does not expect to care for them in old age, while the country of origin does not count the years worked abroad towards their retirement plan. Portable pensions may offer a solution, according to researchers of the HSE's Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (St. Petersburg) involved in the study Pension Mobility within the Eurasian Economic Union and the CIS.
On October 16-18, the 5th International Conference of the Russian Association of Higher Education Researchers took place at the Higher School of Economics. The theme of this year's conference was 'Managing Differentiation in Rapidly Changing Higher Education Systems: Challenges and Opportunities.'
The HSE has held the fourth annual workshop ‘Banking in Emerging Markets: Challenges and Opportunities’, organized by National Research University Higher School of Economics (CInSt HSE) with the support of the Bank of Finland Institute for Economies in Transition (BOFIT).
Most Russians are confident that they only consume legally-produced spirits. The proportion of Russians who consciously purchase counterfeit or bootleg liquor remains relatively small. However, the percentage of those who are either unsure that their drink is the genuine article, or who don't care whether it's fake or genuine, is relatively high. This is what Senior Research Fellow at the HSE's Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology Zoya Kotelnikova found.
Russian society has a generally low level of trust. Colleagues and neighbours are the only exception – Russians regard them as trustworthy. A trusting attitude towards one's inner circle of acquaintances has a greater effect on life satisfaction than trust in public institutions and people in general, according to Anna Mironova, Research Intern of the HSE’s International Laboratory of Socio-Cultural Research.
Not all consumers want to buy things at a discount. Many people prefer expensive stores to discounters since the purchase price of a good can demonstrate that the buyer belongs to a particular social group or to a particular community of buyers, Elena Berdysheva, a Senior Research Fellow in HSE’s Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology, said in the paper ‘What Do We Know about Consumers’ Price Perception? Research Findings of Studies in Sociology and Marketing Science’.
