In 1994, under a directive issued by the Russian Ministry of Education, doctoral programmes in three areas, economic theory, economics & national economy administration, and mathematical & instrumental methods in economics, were launched at HSE.

These areas were chosen in accordance with the upcoming graduation of MA level economics students at HSE. The number of doctoral programmes was gradually growing, and new programmes were launched in sociology, law, philosophy, and other areas.

The first academic supervisors of doctoral students were Svetlana Avdasheva, Revold Entov, Leonid Grebnev, Nikolay Berzon, Grigory Kantorovich, Lev Jakobson, Igor Lipsits*, Rustem Nureev, Andrei Yakovlev, and Tatyana Kosova.

The first enrolments took place in 1995, when 25 students were admitted to HSE doctoral programmes. In 1998, there were 44 of them. In 2017, HSE will enroll 340 students in its doctoral programmes. Today, the university offers 64 doctoral programmes in 17 areas.

Some of HSE’s doctoral graduates go on to teach and carry out research at the university.