'IPW-2026': How World-Leading Universities Reshape the Educational System in the Age of AI
At HSE University St Petersburg International Partners' Week, representatives of world-leading universities discussed how to adapt to the rapid development of AI technologies: from integrating neural networks into the educational process to reconsidering the role of the person in creative professions.
Universities around the world move from arguments about AI benefits to specific actions: they introduce new training formats, develop rules of academic honesty for working with neural networks, and also research the social consequences of the technologies' use.
Japanese experts rely on interdisciplinarity and the development of teamwork skills; Indonesian institutions focus on transparency, for example, requiring students to record in detail the use of neural networks in the student works. Brazilian researchers concentrated on the ethical aspects of new technologies. The exchange of practices during IPW-2026 showed that there was no single solution but common principles implemented at world-leading universities.
Alexey Naumov, director of the AI and Digital Science Institute at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science and moderator of the panel session 'University in the Age of AI: Preserving Essence, Architecting Innovation for Society', emphasised that the development of artificial intelligence was a unique stage in the development of humanity: we are in the middle of a real paradigm shift. With AI, the world has been changing much faster than ever before.
'Among the key challenges for higher schools are the transformation of the role of a professor, a dramatic increase in the publication activities with possible decline in quality and a rising outflow of talents to the industry. Besides, universities are often inferior to businesses in access to computing resources. At the same time, there are new opportunities coming up: AI helps to solve tasks which used to seem irresolvable—in developing new medicine, materials and even in mathematics. In education, technologies can take care of the routine tasks, allowing professors to devote more time to strong students and advanced classes', underscored Alexey Naumov.
Kazuhiko Hamamoto, vice president for academic affairs at Tokai University (Japan), shared that the university relied on the creation of an educational environment in which students would learn to connect different fields of knowledge. For example, they go on maritime expeditions, where for a month and a half, they live and conduct joint research.
'AI works well with existing information and can quickly find statistically most likely answers. But it is still important for a person to be able to understand other people, work in a team and create new values. These are the skills which are especially important in the age of neural networks development', highlighted Kazuhiko Hamamoto.
Berto Wibawa, professor of the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS, Indonesia), emphasised that the main question for today was whether universities could work responsibly with neural networks. ITS officially allowed students to use AI. However, it is obligatory to specify which services were used, which requests were made and which parts of the text were created or modified with the help of artificial intelligence. According to the professor, such a model helps to shape academic transparency.
'It's vital to teach students not just to use AI technologies for analysing, searching and preparing but also to realise where the technological support ends and their own intellectual work starts. Inexperienced users often overtrust neural networks, and the research work requires analysing the results critically, noticing weak arguments and checking the sources', emphasised Berto Wibawa.
Professor Marcos Raimundo shared his experience in working with new technologies at the University of Campinas. The university launched special retraining programmes, created interdisciplinary AI hubs and started dozens of partnerships with companies. A large part of research covers significant social problems: diagnosis of diseases, digital forensics, studies of algorithmic discrimination and transparency of neural networks.
'We're trying both to react to the development of artificial intelligence and maintain the university mission—democracy, diversity, and social justice. Today, it is especially important to understand which values and principles are built into the AI systems, how they influence society and if they increase inequality or not. That is why universities must engage in the development of technologies alongside the research on social and ethical consequences of the AI use', stated Marcos Raimundo.
The discussion continued with the lecture by French professor Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann 'AI Predictive Analysis in Geopolitics'. According to the expert, AI has become a part of the global competition among states. It influences economics, international relations, information safety and political decisions. The key tool is the geopolitical mapping analysis of digital infrastructure and the distribution of world powers through maps and data. 'If a state doesn't develop its own capacity, research centres and infrastructure of data storage, it gradually loses an opportunity to define the rules of the technological game on its own', highlighted the professor.
The topic of the AI influence on society continued in the discussion 'Creative Industries in the Age of AI' organised by the St Petersburg School of Art and Design. Mitya Kharshak, dean of the School, proved on the example of the video industry that generative models allowed one specialist alone to complete tasks, which used to require a big team. To build new competencies, the course on AI will be obligatory for all the specialisations—from fashion and architecture to communication and digital design. 'We see the change in technical means of the profession. I am sure that regardless of the specialisation, a designer must be able to use these tools professionally and deliberately', he highlighted.
Sergey Gridnev, supervisor of the track 'Design of a Digital Product', presented research on the AI influence on the designers' work. Neural networks allow us to create dozens of visual variants in just a few minutes and speed up content production. At the same time, the role of a specialist is changing: now, it is important to formulate a concept, set tasks for AI, manage generations and select the best solutions.
The discussion participants talked about the ways in which relations with clients and creative teams were changing. French designer and art director Clemenceau Derock highlighted that large companies asked the question of why they paid agencies if a part of their work was done by neural networks. However, according to him, it is the human expertise—an ability to understand the brand context and select strong ideas—that stays the main competitive advantage.
'Today, artificial intelligence simultaneously causes a great interest and serious questions: from safety to the interaction of a human and a machine. At the International Partners' Week, it was especially important to hear how colleagues from different spheres assessed the AI use and which opportunities and risks they see in these technologies', summed up Anton Zarubin, dean of the School of Computer Science, Physics and Technology.
HSE University has become the first Russian university to adopt the declaration of ethical principles of AI use. Besides, the university has become the absolute leader in the Alliance rating in the sphere of AI with the highest category A++. The programmes related to large language models are now developing at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, the St Petersburg School of Computer Science, Physics and Technology and other university departments.
