HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod (HSE University – Nizhny Novgorod, informally "the Nizhny Novgorod Vysshaya Shkola"; formerly the Nizhny Novgorod Branch of the State University — Higher School of Economics) — the Nizhny Novgorod campus of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Founded in 1996 as the first regional branch of HSE [1][2]. It trains economists, managers, lawyers, philologists, mathematicians, programmers, and designers [3]; in 2026 the campus had more than 4,300 students [4].

History

The campus's predecessor was the Nizhny Novgorod Training Center, established in the early 1990s to retrain staff from industrial enterprises; its principal partner was the Nizhny Novgorod Machine-Building Plant [5]. From 1991 to 1996 the Center was headed by Gennadiy Yakshin, who had previously taught at the Gorky Polytechnic Institute [6]. In 1994 HSE Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov visited Nizhny Novgorod, and the idea of opening a branch there arose at that time; the project was entrusted to Professor Lev Lyubimov, who considered the city his hometown [5].

According to Yakshin's recollections, he co-authored the letter making the case for a branch together with Vasiliy Kozlov, head of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Fund for the Training of Financial and Managerial Personnel. Governor Boris Nemtsov signed the letter, but the state committee on education initially refused, and the council of rectors of Nizhny Novgorod universities was opposed; the matter was resolved by Lyubimov, who approached the committee chairman directly [1]. The order establishing the branch was signed on 5 June 1996, and the admissions campaign began on 16 June [1][7]. The formal opening ceremony was held with the participation of Russian Minister of Economy Evgeniy Yasin and Boris Nemtsov [7].

The first classes were held in lecture halls of the Polytechnic University [5]; the "headquarters" was a small building on Sormovskoye Highway [1]. Licenses to train economists and managers were obtained right away, and training of lawyers began in 1998 [1]. The core of the teaching staff consisted of graduates and employees of the Radiophysics Faculty of Lobachevsky University who had completed economics internships in Europe and America under the Tempus program; while they were studying, lectures were given by Moscow professors [1]. In the second year, enrollment tripled [5].

By order of Nemtsov, the branch was given the buildings of the Radiophysical Research Institute, two of which housed teaching buildings; Evgeniy Yasin handed over the premises of the State Committee for Prices [1]. After lengthy negotiations, the campus received premises on Bolshaya Pecherskaya, and later a building on Rodionov Street [5]. The Nizhny Novgorod experience became the model for the campuses in Perm and Saint Petersburg, opened in 1998 [5][2]. In 2004, on Lyubimov's initiative, the HSE Nizhny Novgorod University District was created — an association of schools in the city and the region [8].

In 2009, HSE was granted the status of a national research university [2]. In autumn 2010, the campus website was still called "Branch of SU-HSE in Nizhny Novgorod," while by spring 2011 it had already become "National Research University — Higher School of Economics in Nizhny Novgorod" [9][10]. In 2018, when more than 2,400 students were enrolled at the campus, the university purchased an academic complex of 3,800 square meters on Kostina Street, 2; the funds were provided by the Administration of the President of Russia [11]. In 2026, marking the campus's thirtieth anniversary, a School of Design building on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya was opened [12], and the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum hosted the anniversary exhibition "Confluences" [12].

The branch's own website in the nnov.ru domain, hse.nnov.ru, had been operating since at least 2001 [13]; in its news it referred to the institution by the abbreviation "NF GU-VShE" [14]. By 2010, the campus website had already moved to the university's shared portal, nnov.hse.ru [9]. For more details, see the article Higher School of Economics, Nizhny Novgorod (hse.nnov.ru).

We taught things that were completely unlike what was taught at Nizhny Novgorod universities.

— Gennadiy Yakshin, first director of the campus [1]

Authority

The first director was Gennadiy Yakshin; in 2008 he became president of the branch and remained in that role until 2018 [6]. By 2010 at the latest, the campus was headed by Oleg Kozyrev; under him, Yakshin remained president and Nikolay Petrukhin served as academic supervisor [15][16][17]. In June 2014, philologist Valeriy Zusman was appointed director, having previously served as dean of the Faculty of Humanities [18]. Since 2019, the campus has been headed by Anna Blyakhman, who has worked at the Nizhny Novgorod Higher School of Economics since 2004; at the same time, Zusman became the campus's academic supervisor, and Honorary Citizen of Nizhny Novgorod Professor Gennadiy Ryabov became president [19][20].

Campus Directors
YearsDirector
1996–2008Yakshin Gennadiy Aleksandrovich [6]
no later than 2010 — 2014Kozyrev Oleg Ramazanovich [15][16]
2014–2019Zusman Valeriy Grigoryevich, Doctor of Philological Sciences [18][19]
from 2019Blyakhman Anna Aleksandrovna, Candidate of Economic Sciences [19][20]

Faculties and Programs

As of 2026, the campus has five faculties and a School of Design; it offers 13 bachelor's programs and 16 master's programs, with 450 state-funded places at the bachelor's level and 217 at the master's level; more than 500 people teach there [4][21][3]. For comparison, in 2013 there were 380 state-funded places for bachelor's programs and 231 for master's programs [22]. According to Zusman, the "business informatics" program first appeared at the Nizhny Novgorod branch [23].

Faculties and Schools (2026)
UnitInformation
Faculty of EconomicsTraining of economists — since 1996 [1][21]
Faculty of ManagementTraining of managers — since 1996; dean — M. G. Nazarov, building at [1][24]
Faculty of LawTraining of lawyers — since 1998 [1][21]
Faculty of HumanitiesFounded with the participation of V. G. Zusman, dean since 2012; since 2020 the Faculty hosts the Centre for Language and Brain [18][25][23]
Faculty of Informatics, Mathematics and Computer ScienceIn 2011–2013 — Faculty of Business Informatics and Applied Mathematics [26][17]
School of DesignFrom 2026 — premises in the K. G. Ivanov building on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, approximately 400 students [12][3]

Buildings

The academic buildings are located in three city districts: in Nizhegorodsky — Bolshaya Pecherskaya, 25/12; Rodionov Street, 136; Kostina Street, 2; in Avtozavodsky — Lvovskaya, 1v, where the dormitory is also located; and in Sormovo — Sormovskoe Highway, 30. Some out-of-town students live in the coliving facilities of the IT Campus "Neymark" [27].

The School of Design building occupies a three-storey income-generating apartment house built by engineer Konstantin Ivanov at Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, 22 — an architectural landmark with a floor area of 1,300 square metres. Some sources date the building to 1913 [28][12], while others place its construction before 1907 [29]. During renovation, the roof was restored, and the historic staircase and encaustic floor tiles from the turn of the 19th–20th centuries were preserved; the ground floor features a student-work gallery opening onto the street [28][29].

Research

In 2011, the campus won a Government of Russia research grant for projects led by leading scholars: out of 517 applications, 39 were approved, and 120 million rubles were allocated to establish the International Laboratory of Algorithms and Technologies for Network Analysis (LATNA) [26]. Professor Panos Pardalos of the University of Florida became the laboratory's scientific director, and Valery Kalyagin was appointed its head [25][26]. Since 2016, LATNA has been an international laboratory of HSE, funded from the university's extra-budgetary fund; together with Yandex it held the NET–2018 conference on network analysis [30].

The Laboratory of Topological Methods in Dynamics was established in 2017 on the basis of the Department of Fundamental Mathematics (V. Z. Grines, E. V. Zhuzhoma, N. I. Zhukova, O. V. Pochinka) and continues the school of nonlinear oscillations of Academician A. A. Andronov; in 2019 it became an international laboratory. That same year, a mega-grant funded the creation of the International Laboratory of Dynamical Systems and Applications (scientific director — Dmitry Turaev). Since 2009, the research and teaching laboratory of decision support systems has been in operation (scientific director — E. A. Babkin) [25].

Rankings

According to the 2021 admissions quality monitoring, the average Unified State Exam (EGE) score of students admitted on state-funded places was 87.5 — first among the universities of Nizhny Novgorod Region with an intake of more than 300 students (NNGU — 78.7, PIMU — 76.2, NGPU — 74.1). By the quality of its overall intake (state-funded and fee-paying), the campus ranked among the top ten universities in Russia — the only one outside Moscow and Saint Petersburg [31]. According to the monitoring presented in 2025, it is again first in the Region and ranks among the twelve best universities in the country with a state-funded intake of more than 300 places [32].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — "20 Years" section, interview with G. A. Yakshin (web archive copy, 2016) — The Wheel of History (archive)
  2. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — student handbook — What is Vysshaya Shkola (archive)
  3. V gorode N — university directory — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  4. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — campus main page (2026) — HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod
  5. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — "30 Years" section — History of the Establishment of Vysshaya Shkola in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  6. hse.ru — HSE University — staff page — Yakshin Gennadiy Aleksandrovich (archive)
  7. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Nizhny Novgorod's Vysshaya Shkola Turns 24!
  8. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — university district page — HSE University Nizhny Novgorod University District (archive)
  9. web.archive.org — Campus website, September 2010 (web archive copy) — Branch of GU-HSE in Nizhny Novgorod : State University — Higher School of Economics (archive)
  10. web.archive.org — Campus website, May 2011 (web archive copy) — National Research University — Higher School of Economics in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  11. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Into the New Year with a New Building (archive)
  12. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Nizhny Novgorod Opens New Academic Building of the School of Design in a Historic Building in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  13. web.archive.org — Website hse.nnov.ru, May 2001 (web archive copy) (archive)
  14. web.archive.org — Website hse.nnov.ru, news feed 2005–2007 (web archive copy, 2012) — State University "Higher School of Economics" — Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  15. web.archive.org — HSE in Nizhny Novgorod — main page, October 2010 (web archive copy) — Higher School of Economics in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  16. web.archive.org — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — leadership page, 2012 (web archive copy) — Authority of HSE University
  17. web.archive.org — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — leadership page, 2013 (web archive copy) — Authority of HSE University
  18. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — June 2, 2014 — New Director Appointed for the Nizhny Novgorod Campus of the Higher School of Economics (archive)
  19. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Anna Blyakhman Appointed Director of HSE University (archive)
  20. hse.ru — HSE University — staff page — Blyakhman Anna Aleksandrovna
  21. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — list of faculties — Faculties (archive)
  22. web.archive.org — Campus website, June 2013 (web archive copy) — HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  23. 25.hse.ru — HSE University — "Vysshaya Shkola 25 Years" project, account by V. G. Zusman — Valeriy Grigorievich Zusman: Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  24. nnov.hse.ru — Faculty of Management, HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — faculty page (archive)
  25. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — "Research" section — Research Laboratories (archive)
  26. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — World-Class Information Technology Laboratory at Nizhny Novgorod's Vysshaya Shkola (archive)
  27. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — student handbook — Spaces of Nizhny Novgorod's Vysshaya Shkola (archive)
  28. Vremya N — September 2, 2026 — New Academic Building of the School of Design Opened in a Historic Building in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  29. sobaka.ru — Sobaka.ru Nizhny Novgorod — August 24, 2026 — HSE School of Design to Occupy One of the Most Beautiful Historic Buildings on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya (archive)
  30. megagrant.ru — Government of Russia Megagrants — laboratory record — Laboratory of Algorithms and Technologies for Network Structure Analysis (archive)
  31. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Nizhny Novgorod Enters the TOP-10 Leading Russian Universities by Total Enrollment and Tops the Rankings of Universities in Nizhny Novgorod Region (archive)
  32. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Nizhny Novgorod Leads the Rankings of Nizhny Novgorod Universities by Admissions Quality (archive)