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On April 14–17, 2026, HSE University in Moscow hosts the XXVI April International Academic Conference named after Evgeny Yasin (XXVI April Conference). The conference program is structured around 5 research topics and 20 sections. A total of 421 reports were selected for participation in the conference. In addition to the sections, the conference program includes 28 roundtables and more than 100 speakers, as well as 8 honorary and guest speakers.

 April 15

 Alexey Portanskiy, Lead Researcher of the Department of Global Economic Problems and Foreign Economic Policy of IMEMO, Cand. of Science (Economics), spoke at the conference within the session "International Trade under Sanctions and Trade Wars" with a report "Failure of the Trump Administration’s Attempts to Restructure World Trade".

The report emphasized, among other things, that the practice of manipulating import duties used by the Trump administration fundamentally contradicts the basic ideas on which the multilateral trading system has been built since the early 1940s – namely, the predictability of mutual market access – and therefore cannot but have a destabilizing effect on international trade.

 Ekaterina Labetskaya, Lead Researcher of the Department of International Political Problems of IMEMO, Cand. of Science (Economics), took part in the discussion at the roundtable dedicated to the Honorary Report by Georgy Toloraya (HSE University) "Through the 'Great Wall of Misunderstanding: The Challenges of Asian Studies Studies in an Era of Great Change". The discussion took place within the framework of the conference. The central focus of the discussion was the problem of the qualitative transformation of Oriental studies, the overdue transition from classical academic Oriental studies to an interdisciplinary model capable of providing government and business with applied expertise.

The discussion highlighted the trend of modern Russian Oriental studies becoming a cornerstone of ensuring Russia's national security and a foundation for building stable ties for Russia in a polycentric world. The importance of training specialists who are confident in regional specifics, possessing not only linguistic knowledge but also a deep understanding of legal systems, economic models, cultural codes, and the psychology and mentality of Eastern partners, was emphasized. The discussion logically brought to the forefront the problems of overcoming Eurocentric approaches in education/science and ensuring new channels of intellectual interaction on the eastern flank.

 April 16

 Maxim Yurevich, Senior Researcher of the Center for Comparative Socio-Economic and Political Studies of IMEMO, Cand. of Science (Economics), together with Nikolay Gorodnyi, Junior Research Fellow of the Center for Industrial Policy Studies of HSE University, presented a report "Support for Industrial SMEs in the Context of Multiple Crises" within the conference session "Sanctions, Shocks, and Firm Adaptation: Digitalization, Exports, SME Support".

The report presented the results of a large-scale study on the effectiveness of state support for industrial small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the context of multiple crises (the COVID-19 pandemic and sanctions shocks). Based on an analysis of a dataset covering more than 300 000 industrial SMEs from 2015 to 2024, it was found that state support significantly reduces the overall risk of business closures. Financial assistance (subsidies, grants, guarantees) provides the strongest protective effect – it allows companies to survive an acute crisis and maintains its positive impact on survival for several years.

At the same time, the study revealed an important paradox: while helping enterprises avoid closure, support does not always lead to an increase in their profitability. In some cases, receiving financial and advisory support was accompanied by a subsequent decline in business profitability. This means that the current state support system successfully solves the task of maintaining employment and production activity during a crisis but often does not improve the economic efficiency of the recipients.