News

An international team that included Prof. Marina Butovskaya from HSE University studied how willing parents are to care for a child depending on the child’s resemblance to them. The researchers found that similarity to the mother or father affects the level of care provided by parents and grandparents differently. Moreover, this relationship varies across Russia, Brazil, and the United States, reflecting deep cultural differences in family structures in these countries. The study's findings have been published in Social Evolution & History.

HSE University–St Petersburg has hosted the third expert meeting devoted to social entrepreneurship. The event featured presentations of two books that explore the roles of universities and business in creating conditions for developing a socially responsible society.

In December 2025, HSE University hosted the first Forum of the BRICS Law Schools Consortium organised by the HSE Faculty of Law. The forum brought together 42 international delegates (including 10 deans) from 14 universities in Belarus, China, South Africa, India, and Indonesia. The programme included expert discussions, the signing of cooperation agreements, and the adoption of decisions on the future areas of activity of the BRICS Law Schools Consortium, which was established at the initiative of the HSE Faculty of Law.

The CTF Russian Cup is one of the country’s key cybersecurity competitions and is held in the CTF (capture the flag) format. The semi-finals and the final took place in December at the Smart City Pavilion at VDNH. The winners were the HSE student team VDNKh, whose members are students of the HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM) and the HSE Faculty of Computer Science.

When a virus enters a cell, it disrupts the cell’s normal functions. It was previously believed that the cell's protective response to the virus triggered cellular self-destruction. However, a study involving bioinformatics researchers at HSE University has revealed a different mechanism: the cell does not react to the virus itself but to its own transcripts, which become abnormally long. The study has been published in Nature.

An international team of researchers, including scholars from HSE University, has discovered that knowledge of a foreign language can improve memory performance and increase automaticity when solving complex tasks. The higher a person’s language proficiency, the stronger the effect. The results have been published in the journal Brain and Cognition.

The HSE Art and Design School has opened its major exhibition ‘The Great Disorder’ at two venues—the Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art and at the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation. The main theme of the project was reflections on chaos as an integral part of life in the modern world.

In early December 2025, the HSE International College of Economics and Finance (HSE ICEF) held a student meeting with Stefan Dürr, founder and President of the EkoNiva Group, at the HSE building on Pokrovsky Bulvar. The entrepreneur spoke about his journey from running a small farm in southern Germany to building the largest agribusiness in Russia, and offered advice to aspiring entrepreneurs on how to succeed in the industry. The event continued a series of meetings between ICEF students and prominent Russian practising economists and business leaders.