The high turnover of researchers and lecturers at universities cannot be fully explained merely by low pay or a lack of opportunities for self-fulfillment. Sometimes, young people choose an academic career for reasons other than an interest in research; they may take a postgraduate course to escape military service, to defer employment, or to meet society's expectations, according to Anastasia Sizykh, Research Fellow of the HSE's Institute of Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK)

Russia will better be able to treat cancer, tuberculosis, HIV, strokes and heart attacks if it develops its own success stories in several medical fields of the future. Firstly, it is necessary to improve regenerative medicine, biomedicine, genomic research, the production of medicines that target specific health problems, and molecular diagnostics. It will otherwise be difficult to increase the life expectancy in the country and strengthen Russia’s position on the world market for medical technologies, Alexander Chulok says in an article published in HSE’s journal Foresight-Russia, 7(3), for 2013

It’s time for doctors to actively control discussions of self-treatment over the Internet. Unqualified opinions of uninformed people can mislead many participants of Internet communities, and doctors’ comments about online prescriptions would help users to make right decisions and could even save their lives. Elena Tarasenko, Deputy Head of the HSE Department of Health Care Administration and Economy, has studied the content of web communities dedicated to self-treatment in social networks

Social responsibility amongst business in Russia is gradually transforming from a corporate voluntary decision to standard conduct in the market. Society, state and business associations all expect notable social work from companies. Not taking part in sociallly responsible tasks often affects a company’s reputation, which can result in the loss of influence in the region. And on the contrary, becoming involved in social activities can make companies feel more confident, according to Irina Krasnopolskaya, Research Fellow of Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Non-Profit Sector

Russia faces a situation where orphans, rather than potential adoptive parents, have to go through a selection process. To change this, adoptive families should become professional, while orphanages need to be downsized and open to the community, says Svetlana Biryukova, Research Fellow of the Centre for Studies of Income and Living Standards

The number of women giving birth for the first time after the age of 45 has increased in Russian clinics. This category of women is hete rogeneous and includes those misdiagnosed as infertile, those who were childfree but who changed their minds, and also women who put off having children because of social and economic factors, say Olga Isupova and Nina Rusanova in their report during the HSE XV April Conference on Economic and Social Development

Relationships within Russian families are being transformed. While most people in the country still think that mutual support between the different generations within a family are necessary, these traditions of ‘family service’ are receding into the past. Russia is becoming more oriented to Western cultural values, including the priority of individual interests, reported Cecile Lefevre, Irina Korchagina and Lidya Prokofieva at the HSE XV April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development

A company that makes more effort to encourage initiative among its employees, supports their professional growth, and cares for their well-being will find it easier to hang on to motivated workers and improve the chances of company success. At the HSE XV April International Conference Alla Kupreychenko showed how corporate social responsibility predisposes an organisation to good results

The excessive openness, naivety and careless behaviour of children and teenagers in social networks is no more than a myth, Olga Gurkina and Elena Novikova have concluded  in their study which was presented at the 15th April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development. Teenagers communicate online mostly with friends, not strangers, and rarely openly express their opinions. They prefer indirect expression, such as likes and reposts rather than comments, changes of status and photos

The growth of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogate motherhood, etc, have changed our very idea of parentage. The concept of a parent as an integral and inseparable whole is now being broken down into a number of different roles – there are ‘genetic’ mothers, ‘birth’ mothers and ‘feeding’ mothers while fathers can be ‘genetic’ or ‘social’. This atomisation of parenthood explains the prevailing ambiguous attitude towards ART as Olga Isupova, Alexei Belianin and Anna Gusareva showed in their presentation at the HSE XV April International Conference ‘Economic and Social Development’, in the ‘Demography and Labour Markets’ Section

The living standards of Russian schoolteachers vary significantly across regions due to varied economic, social, environmental, and cultural circumstances. Having examined teacher salariesin the first nine months of 2013, Leading Research Fellow at the HSE Center for Applied Economic Research Pavel Derkachev has made certain recommendations

Russians under 45, top-managers, public sector employees, and people with high incomes are more involved in civil society practices than others. As Irina Mersiyanova and Irina Korneeva found out in their research, getting involved with nonprofit organisations greatly determines people’s civil activity