About the Institute

The Institute was founded by the HSE Academic Council as a university research unit to develop basic and applied research, as well as expert review and analytical analysis in the field of social policy at the federal, regional and municipal levels.

The HSE Institute for Social Policy was established on January 11, 2016.

The Institute’s mission is to conduct research and development, create scientific databases and disseminate knowledge in the fields of household and social sphere economics; quality of life and social stratification analysis; state social policy at the federal, regional and municipal levels.

The Institute is responsible for cross-disciplinary cooperation to create information resources, as well as development and examination of strategic documents in the field of social policy decisions.

The Institute carries out its mission by conducting basic and applied research, creating scientific and methodological information, and developing activities aimed at expert analysis and consulting. It seeks to disseminate scientific knowledge on household economics and social stratification, as well as perform welfare and quality of life analysis. Finally, it studies social, economic and demographic behaviour of the population, public policy development as well as social services at the federal, regional and municipal levels, including family and employment policy.

The Institute cooperates with other HSE Institutes by coordinating research on social policy, engaging in information and project exchange with research units covering individual social sectors, and forming partnerships with HSE departments of that have related competencies such as Institute for Public Administration and Municipal Management, Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Social Sciences and other departments whose academic staff have experience in researching social policy issues.

In 2016, the Institute was joined by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, whose staff has been engaged for many years in the creation and development of a unique database – the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE).

Also, since 2016 the Institute has been regularly publishing the electronic Russian population welfare monitoring Russian Population: Income, Expenditure and Social Well-being. The monitoring materials are based on the analysis of official statistics on income, prices and consumer activity, as well as on sample surveys of social attitudes of the population. All issues of the monitoring are available on the Institute's website.