Research & Expertise

Doctoral programs across the globe face a myriad of challenges, and one particularly intricate puzzle involves the diverse landscape of their student body. This diversity spans across dimensions like age, socioeconomic background, motivation, and career aspirations, injecting a rich tapestry of perspectives into the academic realm. Despite these shifts, doctoral programs often find themselves grappling with the task of adapting swiftly to this evolving environment. In their study, Natalia Maloshonok and Saule Bekova delve into the fascinating concept of 'departmental climate' to unravel how Russian university doctoral students perceive their academic surroundings.

While the global tide swayed toward an expansion in doctoral education, Russia found itself swimming against the current, experiencing a dip in enrollments from 2010 to 2019. However, the year 2020 witnessed an unexpected change of fortunes, with an 11% uptick in admissions year-on-year. This curious scenario unfolded in the throes of a global pandemic that had wrought havoc on higher education systems.

IOE’s Natalia Maloshonok, Svetlana Zhuchkova, Saule Bekova, and Evgeniy Terentev have set off on a quest to unveil the forces that have led to the surge in doctoral enrollments in Russia amid the pandemic, and the potential consequences looming on the horizon.

The Human Capital Interdisciplinary Research Centre (HCIRC) is a world-class research centre comprising a consortium of HSE University, RANEPA, MGIMO University, and the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Its work was highly rated by the RAS in 2021. Lilia Ovcharova, HSE University Vice Rector and initiator of the centre’s creation, talked to the HSE News Service about integration in international studies on active ageing, creating a database on development trends in human potential, studying the effects of digitalisation, and the centre’s priority activities for the future.

To successfully defend a doctoral dissertation, PhD candidates need not only the support of their academic supervisor and close friends and relatives, but also system-wide assistance from the university department or faculty where they study. However, HSE University researchers have found that such support can take different forms and that each has a different effect on how confident a student feels in their ability to successfully defend their dissertation. The results of their study were published in the journal Higher Education Quarterly.

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, May 24, 13:00 Moscow time so you do not miss to join us on Zoom for Session 11 as part of the IOE Fast-track Seminar Series in Education 2022. Dr. Rayna Sadia (Riphah International University Islamabad, Pakistan) will be giving a talk titled, “School Connectedness: An Important Aspect of Mental Wellbeing in Peer-victimized Adolescents.”

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, February 15 so you do not miss to join a live webcast of a talk titled ‘The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be’ by Dr. Howard Gardner to be hosted as part of IOE’s ‘Modern R&D in Education’ Weekly Seminar Series 2022.

Scientists from the Institute of Education at HSE University have shown that children with high levels of inattentiveness demonstrate lower performance in mathematics in primary school, and that this underachievement is more pronounced in girls than in boys. A similar correlation was not observed in the case of hyperactivity.