The navigation system, developed by specialists from the Laboratory for Intelligent Unmanned Systems at HSE MIEM, is designed to search for missing people and allows the unmanned vehicle to autonomously execute route missions without satellite navigation. The Autonomous Search competition is notable for its comprehensive verification of actual working technologies. Out of 50 applications submitted, 15 were admitted to the qualification round, and four teams advanced to the finals.

In the Russian market, sustainable development increases business value primarily when it becomes part of a company’s corporate strategy. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from HSE University and their international colleagues after analysing the management practices of 152 publicly listed Russian companies. The study has been published in the journal <em>Business Strategy and the Environment</em>.

In late September, HSE University hosted a roundtable discussion titled Civil Society in African Countries and Youth Participation in Public Diplomacy. Representatives of non-governmental organisations from Ghana, Ethiopia, and Russia, along with students from HSE University’s Bachelor’s Programme in Public Administration, discussed how young people without official diplomatic status can influence relations between countries and how the nonprofit sector can remain sustainable amid declining grant funding.

Russian universities, with the participation of HSE University, Sber, and Z-union, have developed a neural network that can simultaneously assess the risk of 15 types of pathology from retinal photographs, including not only eye diseases but also cardiovascular conditions. The AI system can help clinicians detect potentially concerning changes at an early stage, identify signs reflecting the condition of retinal blood vessels, and determine whether a patient may need further examination. The paper has been published in <em>Frontiers in Medicine</em>.

Neural networks are no longer simple travel assistants; now they decide what to include on the route and what to skip. Artificial intelligence changes how people perceive a place and shapes the image of tourist centres. At the II International Scientific and Practical Conference ’Information Technologies in the Preservation and Promotion of Cultural Heritage,’ researchers discussed who controls algorithmic solutions and in what ways, and whether authentic traditions get lost in them.

On December 3–5, 2026, HSE University in Moscow will host ‘Comorbid Field 3.0: Social Well-Being, Health, and Medicine in Multiple Contexts,’ an interdisciplinary scientific conference with international participation organised by the Centre for Comparative Research on Social Well-Being at the HSE University Faculty of Social Sciences together with the HSE University–St Petersburg School of Arts and Humanities, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Health Research at the European University at St Petersburg, and Sechenov University. Applications for participation are open until October 4.

Researchers at HSE University employed a new method to model hypoxia in placental cells during pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia and identified molecular markers of tissue hypoxia. Since hypoxia is one of the key mechanisms underlying preeclampsia, these findings are important for a more accurate and timely diagnosis of the disease and for the development of effective treatment methods. The paper has been published in <em>Placenta</em>.

Researchers at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain have presented RusLan-M, an open multimedia corpus that makes it possible to trace the development of early child speech in Russian from first words to the emergence of complex grammatical constructions. The database contains around 41 hours of video recordings and more than 35,000 child utterances. The new resource will help researchers study more precisely how children acquire Russian and, in the longer term, develop more reliable tools for assessing speech development. The study has been published in <em>Language Resources and Evaluation</em>.

The International Laboratory for Social Integration Research (ILSIR) at HSE University studies the challenges faced by vulnerable groups and explores ways to help them participate fully in everyday life. To develop effective solutions, the laboratory’s researchers combine cutting-edge methods with practical fieldwork. In this interview with the HSE News Service, Laboratory Head Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova discusses the laboratory’s work.

Researchers at HSE University have examined how communication difficulties in children with autism are related to brain function. The findings show that not only language networks but also attention networks play an important role. The weaker the connections involved in maintaining focus and switching attention, the more pronounced communication difficulties were. The study has been published in <em>European Child &amp; Adolescent Psychiatry</em>.

Beyond technological solutions, the development of anthropomorphic robotics also demands ethical ones. In July 2026, the HSE Institute for Robotics Systems hosted a foresight session dedicated to developing an Ethical Standard for Anthropomorphic Robotic Complexes. Representatives from businesses, government bodies, scientific organisations, and universities gathered to discuss key ethical and legal issues surrounding the development of anthropomorphic robotic complexes. The main outcome of the meeting was a draft of the Ethical Standard.

Researchers from HSE University examined how the housing crisis in European countries is affecting young people’s perceptions of home ownership, freedom, and the future. As access to home ownership becomes more difficult, young people increasingly seek opportunities for self-realisation and recognition in digital environments, including game worlds and metaverses. The article has been published in Philosophies.

Board members with dedicated expertise in decarbonisation and a company’s systematic engagement with stakeholders on climate-related issues are the most effective corporate governance mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Linguistic Convergence Laboratory and the School of Linguistics at HSE University have created corpora of the Abkhaz-Adyghe languages spoken in the Western Caucasus. The corpora serve as valuable resources for studying these languages with their unique features and demonstrate the potential for their modern use. The corpora were developed through a series of field expeditions to the Caucasus conducted by HSE University researchers and students, combined with modern linguistic processing methods and collaboration with colleagues from regional universities. In this interview with the HSE News Service, Yury Lander, Leading Research Fellow at the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory and Associate Professor at the School of Linguistics, discusses the work of linguists.

Economists at HSE University have examined how smokers respond to changes in cigarette prices. When tobacco prices increase, cigarette consumption does not always decline. In fact, spending on tobacco may even rise: according to the researchers, a 1% decrease in cigarette affordability leads to a 0.28% increase in per capita tobacco expenditure. The findings suggest that to reduce smoking rates, tobacco prices must rise faster than household incomes. The study has been published in <em>Voprosy Statistiki</em>.

Researchers from the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences have shown that the accuracy of birth rate forecasts for Russia can be improved by almost 50% by incorporating the dynamics of online search queries related to pregnancy and childbirth into forecasting models. In the best-performing models, the forecasting error fell from 4.6% to 3.2%. The findings have been published in <em>Populations and Economics.</em>

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Arctic Studies at the Institute for Economics of Natural Resources and Climate Change organised HSE University's first summer school on international relations in the Svalbard archipelago. Alongside lectures and fieldwork, 14 participants from Russia and South Korea developed practical solutions for implementing multilateral cooperation projects in the Arctic.

HSE University and the Russia Renewable Energy Development Association (RREDA) have signed a partnership and information cooperation agreement to support Renewable Energy of the Planet—2026, a national competition with international participation for students and early-career researchers. Applications are open on the competition's website until September 20, 2026.

A development project for Novy Urengoy, prepared by the Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism at the HSE Faculty of Urban and Regional Development (FURD), has beenshortlisted for the Guangzhou Award for Urban Innovation, one of the world’s leading international competitions in urban planning.

Scientists from HSE University, MSU, and Tallinn University of Technology have studied a fossil species of ancient brachiopods that lived in a warm sea in what is now northern Estonia more than 445 million years ago. These ancient brachiopods developed a cup-shaped shell with a protective 'cap' that shielded them from overgrowth by other marine organisms. The study has been published in <em>Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology</em>.