Open Academic Space
On September 17th the International Research and Educational Laboratory of Financial Economics opened at the HSE. It was founded by the HSE International College of Economics and Finance together with the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.
The creation of the international laboratory was, in some senses, a logical follow-up to the joint master’s programme in financial economics which has been running for three years at the HSE International College of Economics and Finance(ICEF) with the support and certification of the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE). Sergey Yakovlev, Director of the ICEF, sees the key goal of the laboratory as ‘the creation of a space for fundamental research in economics and finance in line with international standards’. One of the results of the work will be publications in international peer-reviewed journals, which are currently poorly used by Russian researchers. Sergey Yakovlev also emphasized that the idea of the Laboratory was an open academic space, which can host participants not only from the HSE and LSE, but also from other universities. Experts from Oxford, Vienna, Belgrade and other European research centers have already been invited to work at the laboratory.
The London School of Economics and Political Sciences was represented at the launch by LSE Vice Director, Professor Janet Hartley, who emphasized the growing interaction between the two universities on an academic level and the high level of Russian students, and also expressed her hope that the new research project will be acknowledged internationally.
Carsten Sprenger, Head of the Laboratory, spoke about the specific character of its structure. ‘The creation of such a laboratory is especially important here, in Moscow, where economic research, particularly research in financial economics, has still not developed fully’, he said. ‘It is also important because Moscow is a large financial center, where many processes demanding serious research take place’.
HSE Vice Rector Sergey Shishkin confirmed that further integration into the international academic process and research cooperation with leading universities, including creation of joint laboratories, is a priority for the HSE. ‘The first laboratory has been created in an interesting and promising area of research’, he noticed, ‘Hopefully, the joint work in the laboratory will help all of us prevent a new financial crisis’.
However, the laboratory staff members today are facing a more immediate task: getting it up and running. The first seminar in the laboratory started right after the opening: Academic Supervisor of the Laboratory, LSE Professor Christian Julliard, spoke about ‘The Empirical Likelihood of Tail-Sensitive Preferences’. Two honourary guests of the seminar – Klaus Gugler, Professor at the University of Vienna, and Branko Urosevic, Professor at the University of Belgrade, also presented their works for discussion.
Oleg Seregin, HSE News Service
Photos by Polina Frolova