2022 marked 20 years since the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge has been founded. To celebrate this 20th Anniversary, we selected key events and facts in ISSEK’s history that sparked reflective discussions in academia, set new milestones for HSE University, or encouraged development in various sectors of the Russian economy and public life.

In autumn 2022, a series of three webinars that presented the study of human capital from different angles based on big data mining was launched by the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) of the Higher School of Economics at the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre. The speakers shared their experience of working with big data in different languages, including Chinese, and also demonstrated a wide functional range of the iFORA system through the prism of studying human capital and its components.

On June 22, 2022, the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge held a webinar within the framework of the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre program. It presented the possibilities of using the tools of the iFORA big data mining system to identify global and Russian trends related to human potential development.

Based on the analysis of big data, the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) of the Higher School of Economics has identified the most significant digital technologies already used or introduced in the global and Russian manufacturing industry.

As the situation with COVID-19 has shown, mistakes associated with insufficiently developed policy measures in medicine, science, education and other socially significant sectors of the economy are very costly for society. In the July issue of Nature, First Vice-Rector, HSE ISSEK Director Leonid Gokhberg discussed the topic of the growing practice of making management decisions based on big data analysis.

Additive technologies including 3D-printing are growing faster than 75% of other relevant digital technology areas, noted Leonid Gokhberg, HSE First Vice-Rector and ISSEK Director, at the forum ‘Additive Technologies, Growing Horizons’ hosted by the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) on 3 December 2019.

Alexander Sokolov, Director of the Foresight Centre and Deputy Director of the HSE ISSEK, visited Shanghai (PRC) in early May to take part in the International Pujiang Innovation Forum. The forum is annually hosted by the PRC Ministry of Science and Technology jointly with the Shanghai Municipal Government to discuss and coordinate decisions in the science, technology, and innovation policy area. This year the participants shared their expectations about the period until 2035.

A new supercomputer, which has been recently set up at MIEM, will allow the university to carry out high quality research in deep learning and mathematical modeling. The computer was ranked sixth in the April Top-50 ranking of supercomputers in Russia.

Is big data going to replace conventional statistical observations of the science, technology, and innovation sphere? Participants of workshops hosted by the ISSEK and a number of partner research centres in Austria and Germany in Vienna on 6–7 March agreed that the role of statistics is only going to increase. The experts outlined the potential for cooperation in the scope of S&T research projects and educational programmes.