‘Creating a Project Collider’: Dean of School of Social Sciences and Area Studies on Plans to Develop the Faculty
In 2023, Alexander Sorokin became the new dean of the School of Social Sciences and Area Studies. Among his research interests are socio-environmental research and social research into higher education, and science. In this interview, Prof. Sorokin talks about new educational programmes, partner research, and mobility directions.
— Prof. Sorokin, you have been a dean for more than four months now. Can you share your impressions of the campus and the faculty?
— I got acquainted with the campus in St Petersburg a long time ago. When I was still working in Tyumen, we cooperated with colleagues from the Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History. But it's one thing to work with HSE University remotely, and it is quite another thing to get inside and join the team. Everyone considers HSE University to be a young, active and dynamic university, and when I started working here, I realised straight away that it was true.
Usually, when a new head comes to a team, they choose one of two strategies: leave everything as it is or change it drastically. But the most effective way is the third one. The School of Social Sciences and Area Studies is a very strong faculty. It has strong research teams, competitive educational programmes, and a great potential for developing expertise and consulting. My task is to maintain the generated capital and find new growth vectors.
— How do you imagine the development of science in the faculty?
— I believe that the development of the faculty lies in cooperation with partners and communities both in academic and non-academic environments. We have a very strong school in the sphere of quantitative and qualitative research. At the same time, our interests are not limited to specialised areas—we eagerly work in other spheres and involve colleagues in joint projects.
I'll give an example from a recent international trip. Some of our partners in India are interested in the problem of ecological culture and social well-being: how to increase the level of ecological culture and involve the population, state, and business in sustainable development. To carry out comprehensive research, social tools alone are not enough—in this case, we will need the help of experts from other units. For instance, we as experts in Social Sciences can conduct quantitative and qualitative research on ecological culture and, based on them, create guidelines for working with the population, public authorities, and Indian businesses. Our colleagues from the School of Economics and Management can complement our guidelines with economic calculations and models. We can also attract experts from the Art and Design School to this project so that they carry out design research and develop final materials for various population groups, public authorities and Indian businesses.
At the moment, there are several current joint projects in the faculty. For instance, the Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics gathers sociologists, psychologists, mathematicians and IT specialists. Cooperation with the School of Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science seems quite efficient as well.
It turns out that the specialists of our faculty can be on the same page as representatives of various spheres: researchers, public authorities and business communities. It helps us to launch and develop major interesting interdisciplinary researches. At the same time, both in Russia and around the world, budgetary funding in the sphere of science goes to major projects. To participate in serious competitions, we have to unite the efforts of the existing units and involve other faculties in the work.
My main idea is to launch a kind of 'project collider' when a faculty becomes the gathering point of research not just for itself, but for the whole campus. My idea is to plan interesting projects for our students, employees and partners together.
— What changes will the faculty face in the sphere of education?
— One of the unique competitive aspects of our faculty is the combination of science and education, especially in terms of sociology programmes. We have a lot of research units, and from the first year of studies, our students start cooperating with us and get involved in real research projects. For instance, recently, at the request of the St Petersburg government, our students conducted some research: they studied students' opinions of the conditions of the dormitories in our campus. As a result, our students developed guidelines for improving accommodation facilities which can be taken into account when renovated. Thus, they participated in important work for both themselves and the whole university.
Students' participation in the projects of real clients is useful for several reasons. Firstly, they can get some work experience before graduation. Secondly, when students see that their skills are truly applicable and useful, it increases their motivation to study and work further. That is why an important thing in the sphere of educational programmes is to enhance our cooperation with partners—with those who can provide expertise and offer students places for internships and work in the future.
We also plan to develop additional—cross-cutting—educational programmes which can train students from different fields: political scientists, sociologists, and managers. In such cross-cutting programmes, students keep studying in their main programme but also attend additional classes to hone their expertise. For instance, these can be programmes devoted to the urban environment or urban planning.
Along with that, we are thinking about launching interdisciplinary programmes where students will study not only social sciences, but also natural sciences. This covers the sphere of sustainable development, ESG, adaptation to climate changes and so on. Now, we are actively working in these directions because there is a demand for it from public authorities and business representatives.
— In your opinion, what are promising areas for the development of partner programmes?
— We can attract a wide variety of partners, as the work with data and users is useful and there is a demand for it from companies of different profiles. One of the promising partner directions is urban development. Now, developers try not to simply build buildings with flats, but also to create a certain environment for certain consumers. There is a demand from them for preliminary research: to create a portrait of a buyer—what queries a person has, what services they need. On the other hand, we also need post-project research to understand if we have managed to reach the set goal. Students of our faculty can perfectly cope with these tasks as they have all the necessary skills. What is more, the clients for such project research can be developers not only in Moscow and St Petersburg, but also in the regions.
Apart from that, another up-to-date and interesting sphere for partnership is culture and tourism. At the moment, Russia is actively developing internal tourism. This includes both classical and new types for our country—for instance, ecological and sustainable tourism. In this area, there are also a lot of questions whose solutions are of interest to regional governments, travel agents, and companies. Our experts are working in this direction as well—there are options for cooperation with colleagues on our campus and with other universities and research institutes.
— What steps have you already taken to implement plans to develop the faculty?
— In the sphere of education, we are developing new educational programmes and discussing innovations in existing ones. Recently, the situation in the world has drastically changed, and several master's programmes have to be amended. For instance, it is necessary to look for new partners for regional tracks, and universities in India, Latin America, and Asia are quite promising in this regard. We are currently negotiating joint research and projects with the universities in these regions and others. For instance, I am actively engaging with my contacts from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, one of the leading Kazakh universities—we are negotiating cooperation within the Master's programme 'Comparative Politics of Eurasia'. We are also discussing research with Fudan University (China), and we are going to hold a joint seminar in the first quarter of 2024.
We are also addressing the issue of developing academic mobility. Here, it's important not only to identify promising countries, but also to come up with new formats of programmes. For example, both students and partners are interested in joint expeditions, fieldwork, and short-term visits in the framework of mini-projects. In addition, such mobility programmes will be available not only to our students, but to our professors as well. At the same time, the existing types of academic mobility will remain, and we are working on increasing the opportunities via new partnerships.
— Can you tell us about your personal research interests?
— I have several degrees. The basic one is a classical history education, and my master's degree is in the sphere of management with a focus on HR. My dissertation was in the field of 'History in Science and Technology'. My work covered the history of developing physics in Siberia.
Now, I am strongly interested in socio-anthropological and cultural-anthropological research. At the same time, I take an interest in research in the field of management: organisational culture and identity, human resource policy in higher education, and so on. As for the main topics of my research, they are devoted to studying universities. At first, I was attracted by the history of their development, then I wanted to study internal processes: how the teaching profession and professional identity are changing, and what the organisational culture of modern universities is like. In this regard, I compared Russian universities with universities in France, Germany and the UK.
Recently, I have been actively engaging in socio-economic research. For instance, the ecological history of universities and their participation in ecological politics. The sphere of climate politics also inspires me—it is interesting how the authorities, population, and businesses react to climate change.
For instance, together with my geologist, ecologist, and lawyer colleagues, we studied the high mountain region in the Altai Republic, Kosh-Agachsky District. There, over the last 60 years, the average temperature has increased approximately in 2.5 degrees Celsius. Such changes have resulted in certain consequences, among them the spread of disease. We even made a documentary about our research called 'Humans in the Changing Climate'. The first part of it is almost ready—in it, we discuss how the population view climate change and adapt to new conditions, including disease outbreaks.
— What hobbies do you have outside of research activities?
— I truly love running and take part in marathons every year. This hobby helps me to unwind and engage in self-reflection. I especially like running in new cities and exploring new places. It helps to see various layers of the city and feel its rhythm. At the same time, I like reading and playing intellectual games. I am also keen on travelling, especially with my family.