Research Activity

Faculty schools and departments are aimed at implementing extensive and highly specialized research projects. Faculty members conduct research, take part in joint projects (including international ones), speak at Russian and international conferences, and publish their research in the most respected academic journals in Russia and abroad.

 The Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities is the largest faculty division. It includes several research centers and is active on a number of research projects focusing on the mechanisms involved in forming social and cultural knowledge, the history of academic communities (universities in particular), history of the humanities, the transformations underway in modern culture, as well as topical problems in sociology.

In addition to the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities there are also six international centers:

• The International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, which works with Georgetown University, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and other international research organizations. Its research activity focuses on the social history of the war and the ‘human dimension’ of warfare.
• The International Centre of Anthropology was founded in February 2018 as a research unit within the School of History, Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics. The Centre studies social institutions, forms of political organization and cultures of peoples of the past and present in historical dynamics, in the context of local and global sociocultural history.
• Center for Language and Brain focuses on the neuronal basic grammar of human language and other projects in cooperation with the Universities of California, South Carolina, Groningen, Munich, Potsdam and others. Other faculty departments also work with international partners.
• International Laboratory for the Study of Russian and European Intellectual Dialogue, which establishes contacts with Russian and foreign specialists and institutions dealing with translations and publications of the works of Russian philosophers and writers.
• Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, which simulates the processes of language convergence and the development of tools for their study;
• The International Laboratory for Logic, Linguistics and Formal Philosophy (LLFP) was founded on April 16, 2018 based on the results of the project competition for creating international laboratories at the Higher School of Economics for the period from April 2018 to December 2020. LLFP is an interdisciplinary centre of cooperation, where researchers in logic and linguistics come together to apply formal methods to solve conceptual problems, as well as develop integrative approaches, which can address key issues related to classical philosophy, such as truth, knowledge, substantiation, rationality and normativity.

In 2017, a new scientific and educational unit became part of the faculty - the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, whose feature is bringing together, within the same academic body, specialists in Oriental Studies, Classical Philology and Ancient History, which allows us to advance and promote a wide range of interdisciplinary research.

Other departments of the faculty also have constant foreign partners.

The Laboratory of Linguo-Semiotic Studies develops linguistic research methods for various aspects of culture and interaction between cultural traditions (primarily related to Russian and West European culture). The laboratory’s activities include theoretical research and specific linguo-semiotic and historical philological studies.

The Laboratory of Medieval Studies researchers analyze the historical and cultural space, regional identity, and the dynamics of interaction. The faculty is engaged with a range of studies on various aspects of medieval culture of Latinate and Orthodox Europe.

Each Faculty school and centre holds research seminars and workshops, round tables and conferences, presentations by staff members and international guests, which are open to everyone.