A researcher at HSE University analysed data on 1,539 doctoral students from 161 Russian universities to identify which features of a thesis topic are associated with academic success and engagement. The most important factor was found to be personal interest in the research topic, which was associated with almost all key aspects of doctoral programme experience—from engaging with the academic supervisor to research activity and confidence about successfully defending the thesis. The findings have been published in Higher Education.

A new academic year is the right time to start planning one’s international projects and publications. The HSE Academic Writing Centre invites researchers, faculty members, and postgraduate students to the AWC Welcome Day on September 23–24. This is a traditional event to start the year where the participants can get to know the AWC team and find out more about its programme for the autumn semester.

Having a good defence attorney in criminal proceedings can largely determine whether a defendant retains their freedom, health and good name. Researchers at HSE University propose a method for predicting an attorney’s performance based on the outcomes of their previous cases. The methodology takes into account the severity of the charges, the complexity of the cases, and the most likely outcome, drawing on judicial statistics.

A delegation of scientists from Hanoi visited the HSE Faculty of Computer Science and then took part in a Russian-Vietnamese conference in St Petersburg. The events were part of the three-year project ‘Flexibility and Computational Methods.’ Over the course of the project, the researchers have prepared joint publications and obtained new mathematical results.

Illustrations can help remember specific actions but do not always make abstract ideas easier to learn. Researchers from HSE University and Humboldt University compared how people learn from texts with different levels of abstractness. They found that participants remembered illustrations better and performed better on related tasks after reading a multimedia text about yoga asanas than after reading an abstract text about the Nash equilibrium. The findings could help improve the selection of illustrations for educational and informational materials. The study has been published in Learning and Instruction.

Researchers from HSE University presented a study at the international ChinaMM 2026 conference on how video transmission distortions affect the performance of neural networks. The authors proposed a new approach to testing the robustness of such models under conditions that closely resemble the real-world use of video services.

When Tatiana Eremicheva chose Fundamental and Computational Linguistics as her field of study, she thought it would be about learning languages. Instead, she discovered it was about helping people. In this interview for the HSE Young Scientists project, she discusses science as a way of understanding the world, billiards as a team-building activity, and why learning to read is not always as easy as it seems.

International conflicts, crises and digital overload—the modern world puts our minds to the test every day. Traditional psychology often focuses on the consequences: anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic disorders. But what if we looked at the problem differently—through the lens of the resources that prevent us from breaking down? Psychological immunity is precisely this set of resources. Alena Zolotareva and her group, Psychological Immunity as a Resource for Positive Functioning, are developing an integrative model of this phenomenon, adapting diagnostic tools and preparing for large-scale empirical research. Why do psychologists need to collaborate with medical professionals, and how could their research transform preventive care in clinics and corporations?

Industrial automation is one of the key applications of artificial intelligence. A predictive analytics system for large electric motors is among the solutions being developed for the industry as part of HSE University’s Strategic Technological Project ‘Multi-Agent Platform of AI Solutions for Industry-Specific Tasks.’ What is predictive analytics, how can it improve the operation of electric motors, and what specialists joined forces to develop this technology? Anton Zarubin, Dean of the School of Computer Science, Physics, and Technology at HSE University–St Petersburg and the project development coordinator, explains in this interview with the HSE News Service.