A year ago, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns caused Russian universities to switch to distance learning. Emergency digitalisation, embracing new teaching and learning formats and switching to remote teacher-student communication — all of this was a challenge, but the universities found ways to cope. Students also learned some vital lessons outside of the curriculum. This unusual, challenging situation gave rise to various fears and concerns about distance education — and also highlighted what remains essential to the learning process, no matter its mode. 

Climate change-induced ice melting in the Arctic has led to contradictions in the assessment of Russia’s rights in the region. As ice cover diminishes, Russia may be losing its influence on the territories that it has historically developed. This is partially due to the changing width of territorial waters by low-water lines. However, there are alternative legally valid ways to establish fair borders, which are described by researchers of the HSE Institute of Ecology in their paper ‘Prospects for the evolution of the system of baselines in the Arctic’.

The British Educational Research Association, BERA, has announced the winners of its Early Career Researchers Award, founded this year to recognize emerging researchers. The new award’s first two winners are Saule Bekova, Research Fellow at theInstitute of Education of the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, and Binwei Lu of Durham University (UK). In the announcement, the organizing committee praised them as ‘outstanding scholars’ and noted the potential significance of their research for the field of education.