Scientists at HSE University have found that current AI models, including ChatGPT and Claude, tend to overestimate the rationality of their human opponents—whether first-year undergraduate students or experienced scientists—in strategic thinking games, such as the Keynesian beauty contest. While these models attempt to predict human behaviour, they often end up playing 'too smart' and losing because they assume a higher level of logic in people than is actually present. 

Gabriella Leelee Enchill is a third-year student at the HSE University Doctoral School of Sociology. Her research focuses on gender inequality in rural Ghanaian communities. Gabriella spoke to the HSE News Service about what her studies have uncovered about inequality in the region, how women can gain agency by banding together, and why studying these communities helps empower women around the world.

Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain took part in brain surgery on a patient who had been seriously wounded in the SMO. Surgeons at the Burdenko Main Military Clinical Hospital removed the shell fragment while the patient remained conscious. During the operation, neurolinguists conducted language tests to ensure that language function was preserved.

In 2026, a new Bachelor’s programme in Development and Urban Planning will be launched at HSE University’s Faculty of Urban and Regional Development. The educational programme’s key partners are the MR development company and the A101 Group of Companies.

The HSE News Service spoke to Prof. Maxim Nikitin, Deputy Director of HSE ICEF and Academic Director of the Master’s in Financial Economics, about the college’s international student body and burgeoning partnerships with foreign universities. We also spoke to Minghao Yan, a graduate from China who was awarded the highest marks for the defence of his master’s thesis on gambling behaviour.

New interactive editions of Russian classics have been released in the Live Pages mobile app. They were prepared by students and graduates of the School of Philological Studies at the HSE Faculty of Humanities. The project, which has been developing for more than ten years in collaboration with experts from the School of Linguistics, offers readers not just text but digital books enriched with maps, timelines, and commentary for deeper immersion in the works.

Associate Professor Yulia Zaitseva of the Faculty of Computer Science’s Big Data and Information Retrieval School and Research Assistant Ekaterina Nistyuk of the Laboratory on Algebraic Transformation Groups have been named among the winners of the Young Russian Mathematics research grant competition. Also among the awardees is Vladislav Pokidkin, a PhD student at the Faculty of Mathematics.

Alexey Efimov has been appointed Head of the School of Asian Studies at the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs. His interview sheds light on how a career path from analyst to journalist and diplomat in China shapes one’s understanding of the East, why soft skills are crucial for today’s international affairs professionals, and what prospects lie ahead for the development of the School of Asian Studies.

A large-scale open day for prospective applicants to the HSE Film Institute took place at the HSE Cultural Centre. The event was structured in full accordance with the laws of dramaturgy, and the guests became not merely spectators, but active participants in the acting process.