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The HSE News Service spoke to Prof. Maxim Nikitin, Deputy Director of HSE ICEFand 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.

In early December 2025, the HSE International College of Economics and Finance (HSE ICEF) held a student meeting with Stefan Dürr, founder and President of the EkoNiva Group, at the HSE building on Pokrovsky Bulvar. The entrepreneur spoke about his journey from running a small farm in southern Germany to building the largest agribusiness in Russia, and offered advice to aspiring entrepreneurs on how to succeed in the industry. The event continued a series of meetings between ICEF students and prominent Russian practising economists and business leaders.

In early December, Vice Rector Alexey Koshel hosted his traditional welcome meeting with new international faculty members. In 2025, HSE University welcomes 44 successful candidates for tenure-track positions and postdoctoral fellowships.

On November 28, 2025, the International College of Economics and Finance (ICEF) of HSE University hosted the 14th International Moscow Finance Conference. The event brought together many leading researchers in financial economics. The program featured three regular sessions focusing on cutting‑edge topics in contemporary finance research and a keynote address by Allen N. Berger, Professor of Finance at the University of South Carolina (USA).

Danila Karapsin is a freshly baked graduate of the ICEF Master’s Programme but already a seasoned professional. Danila studied for his degree from 2023 to 2025 and started a job in his second year. He currently holds a developer analyst post at Yandex, specialising in FinTech—the field encompassing everything related to transfers, payments, loans, and savings. One major app for accessing the fintech products is Yandex Pay, whose team has Danila as its member. We met with Danila to find out more about his job and which of his master’s courses prove to be most useful in it.

In late October, the academics of ICEF HSE and FES HSE went to Wuhan University (China) for the Wuhan University – HSE Joint Workshop on Applied Economics, a venue that has brought together the economics researchers of the two universities.

October 10, 2025 ICEF held the Seventh ICEF International Conference on Applied Economics at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. The conference was held in offline format with the participation of researchers from leading Russian and foreign universities, which contributed to the exchange of ideas among academics doing state-of-the-art research on applied economics including industrial organization, the economics of education and labour, environmental economics and energy transition, empirical analysis of legal institutions and corporate governance.

In late August, ICEF HSE hosted a delegation from the Vietnam National University–University of Economics and Business (VNU-UEB), Hanoi.
The visit resulted in the signing of a student exchange agreement designed to strengthen cooperation between the two institutions.

The start of student life is an exhilarating adventure and a step into a whole new life. Every year ICEF welcomes its new class to Freshman Day, where they meet their teachers, tutors and administrative staff to be navigated through the learning process, rules of study, e-resources, and what to expect from the years as ICEF students.

Ilya Vuchenovich, 23, has made it onto the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 List 2025. Together with his 29-year-old sibling Alexander, the promising Russian businessman and graduate of ICEF HSE runs Drinksome – a swiftly growing company with reputation as a leader on domestic non-alcoholic beverages market it has won in just a short amount of time.