Student Research Paper Competition 2022 Now Open at HSE University

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The start of a new academic year is an excellent time to plan the next steps in your academic career. On September 1, HSE University announced the start of its annual Student Research Paper Competition (SRPC-2022). Participation is open to students of Russian and international universities and to 2022 graduates. Last year, a total of 2,196 papers were submitted to the SRPC, of which 435 were from external participants.

Papers must be uploaded to the website by October 15. According to Ivan Gruzdev, HSE University Director for Internal Monitoring and Student Academic Development, involving students in various research activities is a standard practice at the university.

Ivan Gruzdev

So you have written a research paper, and now you want to get feedback on it. We realise how important feedback is, particularly to early-career researchers. This is one of the reasons why the SRPC was launched in 2003. Last year, there were 314 winning entries.

We at HSE University are impressed by the high quality of papers submitted to the competition and do our best to support young researchers. Since last year, a special scholarship has been available to the first-prize winners in each SRPC nomination. We look forward to seeing even more novel and interesting papers at SRPC-2022.

How the competition works and what's new in SRPC-2022

Each year, more students participate in the SRPC and new fields are added. This year, the participants will compete in 25 categories reflecting HSE’s diversity, from mathematics and media communications to law and design. See the competition website for a full list of competition fields.

Last year, the new Demography category was added, and this year, papers can be submitted for the first time under Urban Studies, Urban and Transport Planning.

Evgeny Mikhaylenko, Dean of the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development

We are pleased to announce the opening of a long-awaited SRPC field: Urban Studies, Urban and Transport Planning. The topic known as 'urban studies' is widely discussed both inside and outside of academia, but I emphasise that it is academic research we would like to see—particularly papers which raise pressing issues such as the impact of various policies on urban processes. A fundamentally important aspect of this field of study is a spatial approach to urban problems. How exactly these problems are addressed can vary: we expect papers based on sociological, economic, geographical, environmental, transport, legal and other research.

We hope that in addition to submissions from the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development, this field will attract papers from students of other HSE faculties and other universities.

Applications are open for papers in Russian and English, and fields such as Philosophy, Philology, and World Economy, Global Politics and Asian Studies also accept papers in French, German and Spanish.

A new Best Bachelor's Paper nomination has been added to the Mathematics competition field.

Alexandra Skripchenko, Dean, Faculty of Mathematics

This year, the SRPC in Mathematics will be run in a new, more flexible format to allow bachelors' students either to compete with other bachelors' or to try their hand at a general competition together with Masters' and final-year specialist students.

Those taking the first steps in their chosen field of research should perhaps opt for the former, while those who have studied their field for a while and produced meaningful results might try the latter option.

Paper submission and assessment are online only. Each submitted paper is anonymised before being assessed by experts (except for the Mathematics category). See more information on the rules of participation and application here. 

The results of the competition will be announced and published on the website in December.

Winning in the SRPC: what to expect?

Competition winners and prize recipients will benefit from the following:

 As in 2021, first-prize winners can receive a special scholarship at the rector's discretion. Winners who are students at other universities will be able to 'activate' their grant if they enrol in a master's or doctoral programme at HSE University.

 Additional points in applications for state-funded places on HSE master’s programmes (if allowed by the programme) and a tuition discount for fee-paying places.

 Winners who are HSE students or staff members will receive travel grants to make a presentation at a conference or summer school. Winners who are students at other universities will be able to ‘activate’ their travel grant if they begin studying or working at HSE University.

 An invitation to Science Republic, a project that supports students with high academic potential.

Maria Parfenya, SRPC winner

I submitted papers to the SRPC four times and won three times: third prize twice and first prize once. In two instances, I submitted my term paper or a part of my term paper, and the most recent submission was the draft of an article that I am now planning to finalise and send to an academic journal for publication.

The main benefit for me was reassurance—winning the competition confirmed the importance of my research. I have been focusing on a rather narrow and specific field of study for years, and I used to think that few people other than myself were interested in the subject. But winning in the SRPC proved that this was not true. As for my first winning paper, I did not expect it to win, because the research had taken little effort and seemed far too basic to me. Fortunately, my academic supervisor convinced me to submit the paper anyway, and I eventually realised that my worries were unfounded.

More information on the terms and conditions of the SRPC is available on the official website. You can also address your questions to the organising committee: tzakharova@hse.ru or phone +7 (495) 772-95-90, ext. 27778 (contact Tatyana Zakharova or Elena Titova).