HSE Development Programme News

In January, HSE University hosted the third GameDevFest of the Faculty of Computer Science—a computer game festival organised by the School of Software Engineering and the project group ‘Computer Game Software Engineering—PIKI’ with the participation of the Vintorog game studio. Guests had the opportunity to play a variety of video games, including demo versions created by FCS students and other aspiring game designers.

Scientists at the HSE AI Research Centre have developed a novel approach to determining robustness in deep learning models. Their method works eight times faster than an exhaustive model search and significantly reduces the need for manual verification. It can be applied to particle physics problems using neural networks of various architectures. The study has been published in IEEE Access.

Every year, in response to IT industry demands, the Higher School of Economics Faculty of Computer Science launches new educational programmes while updating existing ones. In 2026, the faculty introduced Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes in robotics for the first time.

Eating habits can be shaped not only by the authority of medical experts but also through ordinary conversations among friends. Researchers at HSE University have shown that advice from peers to reduce sugar consumption is just as effective as advice from experts. The study's findings have been published in Frontiers in Nutrition.

On February 4–5, 2026, the HSE BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre (BRICS Competition Centre), together with the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA), held a meeting of the BRICS Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in Food Markets in Cairo. The antimonopoly authorities agreed to launch a joint analysis of the grain sector to be conducted with the support of the BRICS Competition Centre and based on the centre’s research report. On the sidelines of the event, a cooperation agreement was also signed between the St Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX) and the Egyptian Mercantile Exchange.

Researchers at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain have developed a tool for assessing text complexity in low-resource languages. The first version supports several of Russia’s minority languages, including Adyghe, Bashkir, Buryat, Tatar, Ossetian, and Udmurt. This is the first tool of its kind designed specifically for these languages, taking into account their unique morphological and lexical features.

Researchers at the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have studied how the brain responds to audio deepfakes—realistic fake speech recordings created using AI. The study shows that people tend to trust the current opinion of an authoritative speaker even when new statements contradict the speaker’s previous position. This effect also occurs when the statement conflicts with the listener’s internal attitudes. The research has been published in the journal NeuroImage.

Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain took part in brain surgery on a patient who had been seriously wounded in the SMO. A shell fragment approximately five centimetres long entered through the eye socket, penetrated the cranial cavity, and became lodged in the brain, piercing the temporal lobe responsible for language. Surgeons at the Burdenko Main Military Clinical Hospital removed the foreign object while the patient remained conscious. During the operation, neurolinguists conducted language tests to ensure that language function was preserved.