‘Human Capital Has Been the Subject of Discussion in a Variety of Scientific Venues’

Photo: government.ru

The work results of world-class research centres were presented at the Government Coordination Centre. Leonid Gokhberg, First Vice Rector of HSE University, spoke about the main scientific results of the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, Chairperson of the meeting, reminded the audience that the world-class research centres were created as part of the national project ‘Science and Universities’ in 2020: ‘Over time, they have been reoriented from fundamental to applied tasks and have achieved high results. These research centres ensure the rapid release of in-demand technologies to the market.’

The Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre is the only such centre in the field of social and human sciences. The consortium includes HSE University, the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), MGIMO University, and the Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

During its five years of existence, the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre has not only achieved impressive research results, but has also become part of the agenda of Russian society: human capital, its characteristics and prospects for development have become the subject of discussion at various scientific and expert platforms in the country.

The key research results of the consortium were presented at the meeting by Leonid Gokhberg, First Vice Rector of HSE University. Maria Nagernyak, Deputy Vice Rector of HSE University, also attended the meeting at the Coordination Centre.

Leonid Gokhberg

‘The Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre has fully accomplished its tasks, achieved all target indicators, exceeding many of them, including publications of level Q1/Q2 and the number of involved young scientists up to 39 years old,’ said Leonid Gokhberg. He particularly noted the demand for the Centre’s results in the educational environment: over five years, 7,347 young researchers and students have been trained within the framework of research and educational programmes of the Centre. The significance of achieved results is confirmed by 80 Rospatent certificates, which is 140% more than planned, and by 310 articles published in highly rated scientific journals (1.6 times more than planned).

The Centre has created 40 unique empirical databases (DBs), which have allowed for the replacement of foreign analogues of information resources, to form a Russian segment of international databases and to create unique national information resources in new areas. Such databases have been used to evaluate family, demographic, and economic policies, as well as international research. These include the international database on the elderly generation (SHARE, NISP), which contains indicators of the level and quality of life of elderly citizens; the international database of national accounts KLEMS, which contains indicators of GDP volume, purchasing power, and productivity; a database on platform employment; and the first database in the history of modern Russia on child well-being and time use, which was created within the framework of the Consortium of Child Well-Being Researchers and covers children aged 5–17 along with their parents.

The empirical data collected by the Centre has led to the development of 13 comprehensive human development indices. They have become sought-after tools in family, demographic, social, and economic policy, in the promotion of national projects and in the development of creative industries. For example, the Centre’s researchers created the Russian Regional Creative Industries Index based on 48 indicators.

The money invested in scientific infrastructure has paid off. Thanks to the unique, state-of-the-art equipment acquired for the Neurocognitive Cluster, the Centre has developed a range of advanced neurocognitive technologies for the detection of neurocognitive disorders, media framing, and psycho-emotional analysis of consumer and social behaviour. Scientists in the Neurocognitive Cluster have studied the relationship between the distribution of speech between the two hemispheres of the brain and individual structural features at the level of white matter. These findings are used in the medical care of patients undergoing neurosurgery, as predicting the dominant hemisphere for speech reduces the risk of speech disorders after surgery.

Throughout all five years, the Centre has actively participated in the development of the country’s strategic documents (the Strategy of Actions for the Implementation of Family and Demographic Policy, Support for Large Families until 2036, and the Strategy of Actions in the Interests of the Older Generation in the Russian Federation until 2030) and has provided continuous expert support to the state policy in the field of human development.

Lilia Ovcharova

Initiator of the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre, Vice Rector of HSE University

‘Close cooperation with government authorities, in particular the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, has enabled the Centre to become an indispensable partner in the preparation of important decisions for the country in the field of social policy for children and the elderly. For example, the Centre’s experts supported the introduction of a single benefit for pregnant women and low-income families with children under 17. More than 11 million families now receive this benefit. The Centre’s researchers also made a significant contribution to the development, implementation, and monitoring of the Active Longevity Index, a comprehensive indicator of how much older people can contribute to the economy and society.’

The Centre has also produced a number of important publications on human capital. The monograph ‘Human Capital: Modern Interpretations and Research Results’ was the first attempt in CIS countries in the last decade to rethink the classical interpretation of human capital and to conduct large-scale interdisciplinary research in this area. It combines the efforts of leading sociologists, psychologists, economists, specialists in education, management, geography, and other disciplines to provide a comprehensive view of human capital.

The impressive Atlas of Human Development in Russian and English, based on the author’s unique geostatistical database, has already been placed in the electronic repository of Harvard University and the Sorbonne in Paris. The international monograph ‘Population of Post-Soviet Countries’ is devoted to the most urgent demographic challenges in nine post-Soviet countries (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan). This collective work is important from the viewpoint of developing recommendations for meeting the challenges in the sphere of demography, human development, and international relations.