Recruitment Campaign 2025: How HSE Attracts Top International Talent
For nearly two decades, HSE University’s international recruitment programmes have brought highly qualified professionals from the global academic job market to Russia—from recent PhD graduates of leading universities to experienced international scholars. On September 1, 2025, the university expects 50 new international faculty and researchers to join its academic team.
The primary aim of international academic recruitment is to form a teaching and research staff capable of carrying out globally recognised research and delivering HSE University’s degree programmes at an internationally competitive level.
The selection process for the 2025 international recruitment campaign concluded in April. Candidates were chosen for two flagship initiatives—the tenure-track international faculty programme and the international postdoctoral fellowship programme. HSE expects to welcome 50 international specialists this autumn: 15 under the tenure-track programme and 35 as international postdocs.
These new colleagues are graduates of PhD programmes at 50 leading universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles (USA), the University of Oxford (UK), Harvard University (USA), the Free University of Brussels (Belgium), the University of Toronto (Canada), the University of Southern Denmark, George Washington University (USA), the University of Pittsburgh (USA), the University of São Paulo (Brazil), the University of Bordeaux (France), Boston College (USA), the Free University of Berlin (Germany), the Indian Statistical Institute, Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), Beijing Institute of Technology (China), and many others.
Nikita Anisimov
HSE Rector Nikita Anisimov highlighted a notable feature of the 2025 recruitment campaign. ‘Of the 15 international specialists joining us on September 1 through the international tenure-track programme, nine—that is 60%—are Russian citizens who graduated from top foreign universities. This confirms that our international recruitment efforts also fulfil an important national goal: they support the return of highly qualified specialists to their homeland, to Russia. We are truly pleased with this result. At the same time, the international postdoctoral fellowship programme continues to attract primarily foreign nationals—graduates of top-tier PhD programmes. This year, the vast majority of those who accepted postdoc offers from HSE hold citizenship from friendly countries,’ shared Nikita Anisimov.
Vice Rector Alexey Koshel also gave details about the selection principles and results of HSE’s 2025 international faculty recruitment campaign.
Alexey Koshel
‘This year, members of the subject-specific selection committees and the International Recruitment Committee faced a welcome challenge: the 2025 campaign attracted an exceptionally strong pool of candidates, both in terms of numbers and academic quality. Applications for the international tenure-track faculty programme nearly doubled compared to 2024. As in previous years, the majority of applications—44%—came from candidates in Economics and Finance. Business & Management and Computer Science followed with 10% each, while Linguistics and International Relations & World Economy each accounted for 6.5% of the applications. The remaining 23% were distributed across other disciplines. It has also become a tradition for some of the strongest international postdocs to transition into the tenure-track programme—this year, three such candidates were selected. Applications for the international postdoctoral programme increased by nearly 25%, and the overall academic profiles of candidates were very strong,’ said the HSE vice rector.
As Alexey Koshel explained, ‘this year’s successful recruitment campaign can be attributed to both a favourable shift in the global academic job market and HSE University’s strong international visibility and reputation as a trusted and respected employer.’
HSE University runs its international recruitment programmes on a competitive basis across all its campuses. The university currently operates several successful initiatives to attract international talent, including the International Tenure-track Programme, the International Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme, the Part-time Seniors scheme for leading international scholars, and the Digital Professors programme. Applications for the Digital Professors programme are submitted online via the programme’s dedicated webpage (in Russian).
See also:
‘It Is a Great Honour for Us to Be Partners’
In late March 2026, an official meeting took place between a delegation from HSE University and delegations from Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU); the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; and the Embassy of Vietnam in the Russian Federation. The participants discussed key areas of cooperation that will help strengthen ties not only between the universities, but also between the two countries.
How the Brain Processes a Word: HSE Researchers Compare Reading Routes in Adults and Children
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain used magnetoencephalography to study how the brains of adults and children respond to words during reading. They showed that in children the brain takes longer to process words that are frequently used in everyday speech, while rare words and pseudowords are processed in the same way—slowly and in parts. With age, the system is reorganised: high-frequency words shift to a fast route, whereas new letter combinations are still analysed slowly. The study was published in the journal Psychophysiology.
How Neural Networks Detect and Interpret Wordplay: New Insights from HSE Researchers
An international team including researchers from the HSE Faculty of Computer Science has presented KoWit-24, an annotated dataset of 2,700 Russian-language Kommersant news headlines containing wordplay. The dataset enables an assessment of how artificial intelligence detects and interprets wordplay. Experiments with five large language models show that even advanced systems still make mistakes, and that interpreting wordplay is more challenging for them than detecting it. The results were presented at the RANLP conference; the paper is available on Arxiv.org, and the dataset and the code for reproducing the experiments are available on GitHub.
HSE Holds Exams, Quizzes, and Selection Rounds for School Students in Tashkent and Bishkek
More than 3,000 international school students took part in the INTO HSE International Olympiad, whose award ceremonies were held in Tashkent and Bishkek in March 2026. The university’s outreach events also included final examinations, presentations of academic programmes, and on-site selection tests for prospective applicants. In Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, nearly 200 participants received diplomas as winners and prize-winners. The best of them will be eligible to apply for state-funded places at HSE.
BRICS International School Held in Delhi
The results of the BRICS International School: New Generation, which was held in Delhi, proved that young people have become key participants in the global dialogue. The event brought together 200 young leaders from leading universities and expert centres in India. The programme was organised by the BRICS Expert Council–Russia, based at HSE University, together with the Russian House in New Delhi with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
HSE Researchers Experimentally Demonstrate Positive Effects of Urban Parks on the Brain
Scientists at HSE University have investigated the effect of parks on the cognitive and emotional resources of city dwellers. The researchers compared brain electrical activity in 30 participants while they watched videos of walks through parks and along busy highways. The results showed that green urban environments with trees produce a consistent effect across individuals, helping the brain calm down and relax. By contrast, walks along busy streets were found to be distracting. The findings have been published in Scientific Reports.
HSE to Launch Laboratories in Space Research and Nanoelectronics with One of India’s Top Universities
Scientists from the HSE University and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) will carry out joint research in the storage, transmission, and processing of data in space systems. A second major project will be a laboratory for superconducting spintronics—a promising field in modern nanoelectronics.
Scientists Show That Peer Influence Can Be as Effective as Expert Advice
Eating habits can be shaped not only by the authority of medical experts but also through ordinary conversations among friends. Researchers at HSE University have shown that advice from peers to reduce sugar consumption is just as effective as advice from experts. The study's findings have been published in Frontiers in Nutrition.
HSE University to Host Second ‘Genetics and the Heart’ Congress
HSE University, the National Research League of Cardiac Genetics, and the Central State Medical Academy of the Administrative Directorate of the President will hold the Second ‘Genetics and the Heart’ Congress with international participation. The event will take place on February 7–8, 2026, at the HSE University Cultural Centre.
HSE University Develops Tool for Assessing Text Complexity in Low-Resource Languages
Researchers at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain have developed a tool for assessing text complexity in low-resource languages. The first version supports several of Russia’s minority languages, including Adyghe, Bashkir, Buryat, Tatar, Ossetian, and Udmurt. This is the first tool of its kind designed specifically for these languages, taking into account their unique morphological and lexical features.