Research & Expertise

In a world where education increasingly transcends borders, Ekaterina Minaeva, Ulyana Zakharova, and Svetlana Zhuchkova set off on a research journey to explore the untapped potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a tool for attracting international students. Their study, published in EMOOCs 2025, asks a timely question: Can online learning platforms like Coursera and edX become the next frontier in global student recruitment?

On 23–28 November, the 17th Asian Conference on Education (ACE2025) was held in Tokyo. It brought together colleagues from the International Laboratory of Research and Design in eLearning of the Institute of Education.

Colleagues from the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education and the Academy of Future Education at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University analysed the interim results of implementing the Double Reduction Policy in the Chinese educational system, delving into a systematic literature review. The article has been published in a special issue of the ‘Educational Studies Moscow’ Journal.

Fellows from the International Laboratory of Research and Design in elearning, along with colleagues from the Department of Theoretical Economics and the College of Education at the UAE University, conducted a study on the factors affecting the effectiveness of collaborative work using AI. The results were published in the journal ‘Innovations in Education and Teaching International’.

On 28 August, Vera Maltseva, Director of the Center for Skills Development and Vocational Education and CERE co-founder, presented research on the evolving landscape of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Russia. This officially kicked off the CERE International Expert Seminar Series.

In September 2025, Elizaveta Korotkikh and Natalia Rosenfeld, who are both fellows of the Centre for Vocational Education and Skills Development and participants of  the Academic Postgraduate Programme for outstanding PhD candidates, completed a research visit to Tongji University in Shanghai and other leading Chinese universities.

This summer, the IOE became a co-founder of the CERE Observatory on Education, the first international expert and research platform aiming to advance the global visibility and impact of education systems in emerging economies. In 2025, the focus is on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in BRICS countries.

In a study published in PLOS One, researchers Alex Desatnik, Maxim Yakubovskiy, Sergei Tarasov, and Peter Fonagy dive into the role of trust in the classroom. They introduce the Epistemic Trust Towards Teacher (ETT) questionnaire, a new tool for measuring how much students trust their teachers—and how that trust shapes learning. Drawing on psychology, pedagogy, and even evolutionary theory, the study makes a strong case: trust isn’t just a nice extra in education, it’s a foundation for meaningful relationships and better outcomes.

In their recent study, Tommaso Agasisti, Tatiana Akuneeva, Aleksei Egorov, Daria Platonova, and Pavel Serebrennikov delve into the intricate relationship between non-academic staff and the technical efficiency of Russian universities from 2012 to 2021. Featured in Applied Economics, their research challenges conventional wisdom about university operations, offering fresh insights into how administrative and support roles impact institutional performance. By employing innovative statistical methods, the authors uncover nuanced dynamics that vary between research-intensive and teaching-intensive universities, reshaping our understanding of higher education management.

In a world where deadlines loom and procrastination tempts, a group of researchers—Kseniya Adamovich, Aleksandra Getman, Anastasia Kapuza, and Adelina Fayzullina—set out to uncover the secrets of how adult learners tackle their assignments. Their study, published in The Language Learning Journal, dives into the habits of over 70,000 English learners on an online platform, revealing surprising truths about time management, task completion, and academic success. What they found challenges conventional wisdom and offers fresh insights into the age-old question: Does slow and steady really win the race?