Whether we like it or not, talking with a robot on the phone is now part of our everyday lives. What is the right way to respond to a mechanical voice, who should we blame when communication fails, and could AI make an ideal conversationalist? HSE sociologist Alisa Maksimova answers these questions and more, based on findings from her study of interactions between humans and robots presented in the book Adventures in Technology: Barriers to Digitalisation in Russia.

On January 14, at the 2021 Gaidar Forum, which was held at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), HSE University Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov and leaders of three other institutions signed an agreement to establish the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Center (HCMRC). The other co-signers were RANEPA Rector Vladimir Mau, MGIMO University Rector Anatoly Torkunov, and Dmitry Funk, Director of the N.N. Miklukho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Center will focus on that key areas of human capital studies that are of current global importance.

The latest issue of Higher Education and Beyond, a quarterly informational journal published by HSE University, looks at how doctoral education has changed over the past few years in different countries, what reforms have been implemented and what effects they have had, what the historical roots of the current state of doctoral education are and how doctoral studies have evolved. The articles cover wide range of doctoral education stakeholders—from those who plan to enter doctoral programs to those who got their degree many years ago