HSE Campus in Nizhny Novgorod Turns 24!

On September 13, 2020, the HSE University campus in Nizhny Novgorod turned 24 years. The grand opening of the campus back then was attended by Evgeny Yasin, Minister of Economy of the Russian Federation and HSE Academic Supervisor, and Boris Nemtsov, Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. This was the first HSE campus outside Moscow, and kickstarted the university’s spatial expansion.

‘It wasn’t easy to open such an educational institution in Nizhny Novgorod back in 1996’, recalls Gennady Yakshin, first director of the campus and Member of the Board of Trustees of the HSE Campus in Nizhny Novgorod, ‘The foundation of the campus was a result of a serious battle for a place on the Nizhny Novgorod map and for the best teachers. We were looking for teachers who loved research and teaching and we are proud that together we have become a progressive force that has survived in the changing political situation and is still setting the standards of higher education today.

Gennady Yakshin

Professor at the Branch Department of Industrial Management and Logistics, Member of the Board of Trustees of the HSE Campus in Nizhny Novgorod

Thanks to Boris Nemtsov, the then Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Yaroslav Kuzminov, HSE Rector, and Lev Lyubimov, the ‘founding father’ of the campus, it was opened with the aim of teaching highly qualified staff for the Nizhny Novgorod region, providing them with knowledge of the most recent developments in economics'.

As a result, the edict to create the campus was signed on June 5, 1996, and two weeks later, the first admissions started. HSE University today is the result of huge effort by a lot of like-minded people, and many outstanding people have played a role’.

Lev Lyubimov said that HSE in Nizhny Novgorod was setting new standards of teaching from its very foundation, and this new approach was implemented in the first admissions campaign: ‘In 1996, HSE University was one of the few universities that accepted appeals, and during one of my visits, I attended an appeal proceeding for a mathematics exam. I looked at the applicant’s notes, and the solution that the young man had made – through corrections, from the third attempt, - and decided to allow his appeal.

Lev Lyubimov

Deputy Academic Supervisor of HSE University

This is how I made it clear that what matters at our university is not penmanship, but the process of thinking in the search for solutions. When I stepped outside the room, I received applause from the parents: they understood this was a university with a different, good social model, a university with a human approach’.

‘The campus in Nizhny Novgorod was our first branch, opened just four years after we created the university’, HSE Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov said that this first experience turned out to be so successful that two more campuses were founded later, ‘From the very beginning, it was important to us that the quality of education offered there was just as good as that in Moscow, and the degree granted by the campus would have the same value as the Moscow one. And we succeeded in this.

Yaroslav Kuzminov

HSE University Rector

Unlike many other universities, employers do not rank our graduates depending on the city where they got their degree.

Starting this academic year, we are creating a united educational environment. 25% of all our lectures will be delivered in all campuses simultaneously. This is a result of intensive joint work, and I am very proud of it.’

Cutting-edge applied knowledge based on global experience in combination with fundamental training – these are the approaches that make HSE University special. Today, almost 3,000 students study at the Nizhny Novgorod HSE campus; they are involved in project work and research, including international activities. Many projects of HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod are closely related to the region: they include the digitalization of local libraries and museums, the automation of public housing and utility services, and other similar work. Over recent years, HSE campus in Nizhny Novgorod has become the leading expert in analysing network structures and dynamic systems, with the campus teachers and students carrying out research in neurolinguistics, bioinformatics, and urban economics.

‘We are teaching curious and motivated young people from 30 countries’, said Anna Blyakhman, Director of the HSE Campus in Nizhny Novgorod, ‘Over half of the students enrolled in our campus this year in state-funded places have come from other regions. During the first year of the campus’s existence, 60 winners of high school medals were competing for the 50 state-funded places, and we have preserved these dynamics today’.

Anna Blyakhman

Director of the HSE Campus in Nizhny Novgorod

The high quality of education, a homely atmosphere, and the opportunity to participate in global academic research attract the most motivated and proactive students to HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod.

We are grateful to the campus founders—Yaroslav Kuzminov, Lev Lyubimov, Gennady Yakshin, and all those employees who have served the university and its traditions for many years—this helps us steer our course and combine innovations with the fundamentals of classical higher education’.

Next year, the HSE campus in Nizhny Novgorod is celebrating its 25^th anniversary. The university’s plans are to launch a unique bachelor’s programme in Communicative Design, and to open the first English-taught master’s programme in computer vision. There will also be exhibitions, concerts and open lectures as part of the Open University project, all of which make HSE University not only an advanced centre of education and research, but also a cornerstone of the city’s educational and cultural life.