Impressions from Last Year's International Student Research Forum
Key speakers and participants of the 2016 International Student Research Forum share their impressions of the forces shaping their spheres and the opportunities for new research and collaboration in the community.
As HSE St. Petersburg prepares for the upcoming Think Big Week and participants begin to get ready to meet some of the finest minds in their field, we look back on the St Petersburg International Student Research Forum that took place back in February. The Forum, which brought together experts and top students to participate in plenary sessions and mini-conferences, focused on two main trends and their implications for both Russian and foreign specialists: “Economics and Management” and “Social Studies and Humanities”. Some of the visitors contributed directly, giving presentations, conducting interviews and helping the audience to see the dynamic changes underway in their associated fields.
Session "Synergy in Public Sector Reforms: Lessons, Best Practices and New Horizons"
There is an issue in every country – social policy, cultural policy, especially arts administration, and the use of arts venues as a means of economic development in regions and of cities. These are very popular and very important areas today. There are some cities in the United States that are becoming highly developed by attracting large numbers of artists and artisan communities. Ashville, North Carolina is a great example. The Soho area of Greenwich Village in New York City is an example. There are certain regional areas that have taken advantage of this kind of tendency. [Artists] are busy making art. They are busy making their crafts. They are not the people who organise these events, so they need this administrative infrastructure to be able to make this occur. And this is an important role for regional authorities and city authorities - to facilitate this development.
Session "Modern Finance: Risks, Challenges, Values"
There have been very new, upcoming trends that scholars have been interested in, even if they might not seem closely related to accounting and finance. One example is ‘intangibles’, which I have been working on for a number of years. There is also a lot of work on integrated reporting, which takes all the information, both quantitative and qualitative, financial and non-financial, and puts it into one report to show stakeholders how a company is really creating value. The idea behind integrated reports is to try to connect all the information, and I would say that there is more focus on this from the many people who are interested in the activities of companies.
Laura Girella
Post-Doc Research Fellow, University of Venice, Italy
It is not easy to predict in three years’ time what the trends of research will be; however, let me point out a few potential topics of interest. First of all, especially from a Russian perspective, will be the wider and wider implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standard, IFRS. These are international accounting standards that are going to be adopted by Russia, and more and more companies are going to prepare reports according to them. So, of course, a number of questions are raised, such as is this a good thing or a bad thing for the Russian economy to change the rules according to which financial reports are prepared? Is this good for financial markets or not?Another possibility would be corporate governance and these new numbers, like international financial standards, because the impact of this data could be interesting for the governing of companies in Russia. Another issue that will be interesting is how investors will react to sustainability information, information about social and environmental sustainability. Will this information be relevant to investors, and other stakeholders as well?
Stefano Zambon
Professor of Business Economics, Ferrara University, Italy
Session "Usable Pasts"
One of the things we have been doing in recent years is not just doing traditional historical research in archives and libraries, but also visiting important sites in the environment and working with the people who manage them. So, working with nature conservationists. I was on a project working with the water company, with the British forestry commission, with these zapovedniki (national parks) here in Russia. I think this gives the opportunity for exchange between different disciplines, between different fields and also between the academic world and wide world of business, government organisations, et cetera.
David Moon
Anniversary Professor in History, University of York, UK
Session "Sustainable Tourism Development in the Changing World"
I have a talk here later in which we discuss how to look at the image of countries - a kind of country promotion. We call it “destination image,” because it is about tourism destinations. There is big potential in the future of this area, but it is the biggest area in tourism. It essentially asks what we think about a destination and how we attract tourists, and this is probably the most basic question.
Alexander Josiassen
Associate Professor and Director at the Center for Service Management, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Be sure not to miss this winter’s big event. Sign up for Think Big Week and learn what is happening in a number of sectors and what kind of impact you and your fellow participants can make!
Robert Kravchuk
Director of the Master of Public Affairs program, Indiana University, Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration, USA