News

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.

The Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics studies highly complex processes of interaction between molecules and atoms in solids and liquids, the quantum mechanics of these processes, and ultra-thin two-dimensional materials. HSE physicists, together with colleagues from leading academic institutes, investigate the properties of superconductors and topological materials, phenomena at ultra-low temperatures, as well as problems of turbulence and hydrodynamics.

Career prospects in Russia prove to be more important for African students than climate, language barriers, or everyday difficulties. HSE researchers came to this conclusion after analysing survey results from students representing 28 countries across the continent. The key factor influencing their decision is the opportunity to start working while still studying.

On March 19, Academician and Professor Andrey Yaroslavtsev, Head of the Joint Department of Inorganic Chemistry and Material Science with the RAS Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry, celebrated his birthday. To mark the occasion, he spoke with the HSE News Service about protons, membranes, and other areas of his research.

An instructional seminar of the Open Doors International Olympiad has been held at HSE University. Approximately 100 representatives of 24 Russian universities involved in organising the olympiad took part in the event. The seminar focused on updating the participants’ profile maps, organising the work of methodological teams in a digital environment, and ensuring the quality of the methodological content for the olympiad.

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.

By 2030, the global education system will need 44 million new teachers. Schools have already started rehiring retired teachers and issuing licenses for accelerated programmes. Experts from the HSE University Institute of Education have analysed the educational policies of almost 50 countries and published the report ‘World Education Policy—2025.’

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.