New Year Greetings from Sergey M. Kadochnikov

Sergey M. Kadochnikov

Dear colleagues and friends!

This year is coming to an end. 2018 means a lot to us, because it has been the anniversary year of the campus. And now, on the eve of the New Year's holidays, it is time to look back and share our dreams and plans for the future.

Thus, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of HSE campus in St Petersburg. We hosted a number of occasions, and one of them was HSE SPb Day that gathered students and their families, lecturers and scholars together.

We also granted the ‘HSE of a Dream’ award to all the consummate dreamers of our team, organized the educational festival ‘Back to the Future’, held open lectures of the leading scientists of the university, and organized many other interesting and important events.

In 2018, for the first time, HSE University – St Petersburg entered the top-5 universities in Russia in terms of average score of first-year entrants. The results in some particular fields of study were even better. We came the first within Oriental Studies and Management, and the second within Philology. Two more programmes within History and Political Science are in top-3.

We established three new faculties – St Petersburg School of Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science, St Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Area Studies, St Petersburg School of Arts and Humanities. We admitted the first students to the new Bachelor’s programme ‘Design’, launched the Master's programmes ‘Management and Analytics for Business’, ’Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction’, established the joint department with Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera). The very first students of the Bachelor’s programme ‘Asian Studies’ graduated the university.

There is something to be proud of regarding the international direction. For instance, in comparison to the previous year, admissions to the undergraduate and graduate studies were increased by 3.5 and 2.5 times, respectively. The total number of international students at HSE University – St Petersburg reached 10%. We have been expanding our partnerships with foreign universities, and now we have more than 60 academic partners.  We launched a number of double degree programmes – the Bachelor’s programmes ‘Economics’ with Pompeu Fabra University, ‘International Business and Management’, ‘Political Science and World Politics’ with the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the Master's programmes ‘Finance’ with ESSCA Business School, and ‘Applied Economics and Mathematical Methods’ with LUISS, and last but not least, the joint postgraduate programme in ‘History’ with the University of Turin. 

Two of our scholars, Valery E. Gordin and Daniil A. Alexandrov, received the titles of tenured and distinguished professors – my sincere congratulations! Our achievement were also recognized by ‘Golden HSE Award’. Sergey G. Kokovin, an Associate Professor of the Department of Economics, received the award for ‘Achievements in Research’, and Alina Bakhitova, a first-year student of the Master's programme ‘Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction’, won in the nomination ‘Silver Nestling’.

Most importantly, in 2018, we have prepared a ripe area for big achievements in the future. We signed cooperation agreements with the State Hermitage Museum, the Russian Museum, as well as Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University.

We developed the new Bachelor's ‘Applied Mathematics and Information Science’ and Master's programmes ‘Software Development and Data Analysis’ and ‘Enterprise Software Development’ that will be welcoming the first students next year. 

I am sure that there are a lot of essential and promising events ahead. Do not be afraid of dreaming, pursue your goals, and let all your dreams come true in the upcoming year!

Happy New Year!

Sergey M. Kadochnikov