Following years of study and work in South America and Europe, Rafael Popper joined HSE Moscow as Professor of Foresight and STI Governance in January 2018. In addition to his job at HSE, he is Principal Scientist in Business, Innovation and Foresight at a world leading research and technology organization (RTO) called VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. With a PhD on 21st Century Foresight from the University of Manchester, Popper has built a career on wide-ranging research of issues in foresight and STI policy. In a recent interview with the HSE News Service, he spoke in depth about his research interests, philosophy on teaching, collaboration across HSE and his love of languages, among other topics.

International cooperation in science and innovation is not only able to help solve global issues, such as the battle against climate change, hunger and incurable diseases, but also to overcome political disagreement between countries.

Over the past 20 years, the BRICS countries' contribution to biotechnology development has increased manyfold, but it may be too early to predict a change of global leaders in this field, according to HSE ISSEK researchers who examined biotechnology patenting in the BRICS countries and published their findings in Trends in Biotechnology.

The special issue of the  Foresight and STI Governance  journal various aspects of labour market in the context of technological transformations are being considered.

The Seventh International Academic Conference 'Foresight and STI Policy', traditionally organized by HSE ISSEK, took place in Moscow at the beginning of November. Mr Kato, the Director General of the National Institute of Science and Technology of Japan, was the key speaker at the event. He has talked to HSE News Service about his research interests, as well as about cooperation with HSE in the field of foresight research.

On November 7, HSE hosted a delegation from the Jülich Research Centre in Germany. Scholars from both countries came together to discuss joint research opportunities, including transformation of energy systems for sustainable development; future studies of energy technologies, including foresight studies; and methodological issues related to big data analysis and modelling.

According to the latest available data (for 2016), Foresight and STI Governance journal published by the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) since 2007 has moved up to the second place in the Russian Science Citation Index’s ranking in the “Economics and Economic Science” category.

ISSEK leading experts Gulnara Abdrakhmanova, Leonid Gokhberg, and Alexander Sokolov have written a chapter — ‘Indicators of Information and Communication Technology’ — for a 10-volume set of the Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, edited by Mehdi Khosrow-Pour (Information Resources Management Association, USA). This publication came out in July 2017.