Research & Expertise news at HSE University

Federal and regional maternity benefits such as 'maternal capital', larger child allowances, and other measures introduced since 2007 to improve the country's demography have led to more births, but have not yet contributed to effective fertility rates in Russia. A paper bySergey Zakharov and Thomas Freyka in the HSE's new Demographic Review journal examines Russia's reproductive trends over the past half-century in an attempt to make projections concerning the future effects of the country's demographic policies.

After the Russian Unified State Exam (USE) was introduced, additional exam preparation did not lose its popularity. While there was previously a preference for tutors from the university a student had selected, now students are finding instructors ‘off the street’ to prepare them for the USE, Ilya Prakhov, Research Fellow in HSE’s International Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms (LIA), uncovered in his study, ‘The Dynamics of Investment and the Return on Additional Pre-entry Coaching’.

of concentrated agricultural and forest waste are produced by Russian industry each year. Refining and using this waste as energy would allow Russia to hold a respectable place in the emerging markets of biotechnology products and bioenergy.

of Russian company heads believe that the ability to solve work-related problems without help is acquired by employees only with experience in working independently. Various training courses are ineffective in this area.

On September 25 a presentation of the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI), of which HSE is a partner, took place. The purpose of the project is to integrate Russian academic journals into the international exchange network of scientific information. RSCI has listed 1000 journals, based on bibliometric indicators and expert reviews, to go on the Web of Science platform.

Andrei Melville, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, reflects on the direction of political science today.

When people have a choice, they can either rely on their own information or on that received from those around them. The more emotional an individual's relationship with their own data, the higher the likelihood that, when making a decision, they will be led by that rather than by other people's opinions. This also applies to investors' activity on the financial markets – as research by HSE Psychology Faculty Dean Vasily Klyucharev, and researchers from the University of Basel Rafael Huber and Jörg Rieskamp.

of Russian industrial company leaders report that demand for their products is ‘below normal’ levels. This is the worst report since April 2010 when 40% of senior managers were unsatisfied with the level of demand for their products.