HSE University-St Petersburg Holds XIII International Scientific Conference 'October Readings—2024'
St Petersburg hosted the traditional philological conference 'October Readings—2024,' which addressed issues of inequality. It gathered more than 100 students and professors from universities across Russia and the CIS countries.
The international conference on political science 'October Readings—2024' took place on October 17-19. The main topic of the event was the global and local context of polarization and inequalities. The organisers underscored that over the last five years, there has been a significant growth in social and political polarization. However, almost no scientific events cover this topic. 'October Readings' became one of these.
The traditional conference organiser is the Department of Political Science and International Affairs but this year, the conference also features reports on sociology, philosophy, demographics and psychology. The Readings gathered more than 100 participants. Among them were professors and students from HSE University-St Petersburg, SPbU, RANEPA St Petersburg, ITMO and other universities in St Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The first day of 'October Readings' was devoted to the Youth Forum—presentations by bachelor's and master's students. They presented their research in two languages: Russian and English. After the presentations, the participants attended a roundtable where they discussed the youth policy in modern-day Russia.
Denis Stremoukhov, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at HSE University-St Petersburg
'October Readings' is an important event for me personally. Thanks to this conference, I, being a 3rd-year student, came to HSE University for the first time and realised that I would like to continue my education and career there—this is how impressed I was by the level of reports by students and faculty. Conferences are not only an opportunity to get some feedback on your work and see how it would be treated by an academic community. It is also a chance to broaden the horizons and see how other scientific and educational institutions work with science, and what topics concern colleagues from all across Russia. The conference is important for building a professional community: it is even better that it units not only adult researchers but also students.
The next two days were devoted to the conference guests' reports on current issues of polarization, panel discussions and roundtables. The main part of 'October Reasings' hosted more than 50 representatives of science. They discussed various aspects of the main conference topic in the framework of subject sections on digital inequalities, inequality in the context of administrative reforms, environmental policy and others.
The key conference speakers were Mikhail Ilyin, Doctor of Political Sciences and Tenured Professor at HSE University-St Petersburg, Evgeny Gontmakher, Doctor of Economic Sciences and Head of the Department of Public and Social Institutions and Social Work at RGSU, and Grigorii Tulchinskii, Honored Scientist of Russia and Professor at HSE University-St Petersburg.
Alexander Balayan, Chairman of the organizing committee of 'October Readings—2024', Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Affairs
This year, 'October Readings' were very eventful for me. Amazing speakers who complemented each other, the strong interest of students from leading universities in the city and colleagues from different cities in Russia and the post-Soviet Space—all these things allowed us to make the conference diverse and profound. I would like to acknowledge the work of our student volunteers who did a great job at the registration desk and during the sections.
Artyom Pakhomov, 3rd-year student of the Bachelor's programme 'Political Science and World Politics'
It's my third time as an organiser of 'October Readings', and I regularly find something new for myself. This year, I really liked working with such a great number of participants—there were about 100 speakers. It's a true success! I managed to listen to some presentations—including the ones made by the students of our educational programme. I am truly proud of the strong works of my groupmates and junior students.