Research & Expertise news at HSE University

What is affect and why is it important for humans? How can feelings be defined and what is their relation to emotions and consciousness? What might be used in making a soft robot? Professor Antonio Damasio (University of Southern California, USA) discussed these and other questions in his honorary lecture, entitled 'Feeling, Knowing, and Artificial Intelligence'.The talk was delivered on April 16 at the at the XXII April International Academic Conference held by HSE University jointly with Sberbank.

General wealth levels in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have been improving since 2012 — poverty has been decreasing. But due to COVID, global poverty levels, including those of these regions, may increase considerably for the first time in two decades. Samuel Freije-Rodriguez, Lead Economist at World Bank, talked about this at the XXII April Conference organized by HSE University and Sberbank.

The global economy’s pace of recovery after the pandemic largely depends on whether consumers will return to a hedonic style of consumption. At the XXII April International Academic Conference, organized by the HSE and Sberbank, the HSE School of World Economy held a round table ‘The World Economy in the Context of the Coronavirus Pandemic’.

In 2012, many universities started signing incentive contracts with their staff in order to stimulate research and active inclusion in the global academic market. Together with orders issued by Russia’s president in May, this has led to growth in university salaries. But exactly which responsibilities increase pay — teaching, research or administrative work? The answer to this question will help improve the effective contract system to make it profitable both for teachers and universities.

Experts believe that increasing productivity, diversifying the economy, as well as developing human capital and expanding non-resource exports will help boost Russia's economic growth. But the state policy has to be smart. This was discussed at a series of round tables and expert discussions on the topic of productivity at the XXII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development, organised by HSE University and Sberbank.

From April 13 to 30, HSE University is hosting the XXII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development, one of the most important annual events in Russian humanities. Profile talked to Lev Jakobson, co-chair of the conference organising committee and vice president of HSE University, about the challenges that researchers face today.

Researchers from HSE University and Harvard University have found that the speed of finding an item with a unique combination of features is not affected by the ease with which these items can be grouped by features. Such results are predicted by theories of parallel attention control. The study is published in the Journal of Vision.

The competition for promising young researchers is intensifying around the world, and spending on preparing future generations of highly qualified specialists is on the rise. This is happening against a backdrop of digitalisation, which is creating a new digital inequality. For example, a quarter of the adult population in Russia does not possess any digital skills and does not use the Internet. These and other topics were discussed by participants of a round table held during the XXII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development organised by HSE University and Sberbank.