Former French Ambassador Shares His Experience with HSE Students as a Digital Professor
As part of the ‘Digital Professors’ programme, HSE University invites international lecturers to work with students remotely. One of the programme’s participants is Dr Pierre Andrieu, lecturer at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po). At HSE University, he taught the elective courses ‘EU in the World’ and ‘New Challenges and Threats’ in 2021–2022. In his interview with the HSE News Service, Dr Andrieu talked about his diplomatic career, research interests, and interactive teaching.
After studying the Russian and Chinese languages at Parisian universities, I spent a year and a half at the French Embassy in the USSR. This experience gave me the will to pursue my career in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Therefore, I continued my studies at Sciences Po and later passed two competitive examinations that allowed me to start my diplomatic career.
This career later brought me back to Moscow, where I spent five more years before being appointed ambassador in Tajikistan and later in Moldova and then ambassador, co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
In parallel with my diplomatic career, I started teaching in the 90s at the French National School of Public Administration (ENA). Afterward, I resumed teaching at the Institute of Political Studies, where I studied. Nowadays, I have experience teaching in several French universities, but also in different countries and in various formats.
My scientific topics of interest are linked to my experience in international relations and touch on such diverse subjects as European Union institutions and their challenges, the evolution of the ex-soviet space, the rise of China, and the relations between all these geopolitical actors.
In 2021, I was contacted by the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs with an offer to join the Digital Professors programme and share my theoretical and practical experience in international relations. I am delighted to have the chance to work with such a prestigious Russian university and its excellent students.
The course ‘New Challenges and Threats’ that I taught for third-year bachelor's students is dedicated to analysing the role of various global actors and institutions in world politics. The course aims to acquaint students with new challenges and threats in the 21st century, including the consequences of the pandemic, climate change, social, economic, criminal and terrorist threats, the influence of lobbying, and the consequences of armed conflicts.
I am comfortable with the online format, as I already have almost two years of experience teaching during the lockdown in France. Therefore, I adapted the way I teach and I use tools such as quizzes through QR-codes, screen sharing, and giving students the opportunity to express their thoughts and ask questions to make the class more interactive.
I was impressed by the excellent level of HSE students. They speak several languages fluently, are passionate about international relations, and prepare high-level academic papers and presentations.
Vladislav Butenko, Dr Andrieu’s former student and a 2022 graduate of the Master's programme ‘International Relations: European and Asian Studies’
In my second year of study on the master's programme, I was lucky to meet a wonderful teacher—Mr Pierre Andrieu. Though the classes were held online, their quality was in no way inferior to the usual classroom lectures and seminars. The high level of teaching of the course ‘European Union in the World’ was due to the Dr Andrieu’s professionalism and his experience as the French Ambassador in Moldova and Tajikistan. The course was aimed at studying the features of the European Union as a political and economic association, as well as the challenges it faces. Dr Andrieu was able to successfully combine various forms of conducting classes, including thematic discussions and group work on projects.
HSE University’s Digital Professors programme has been inviting international experts to teach online classes at the university since 2020. Digital Professors are engaged in online lectures for undergraduate and doctoral students, as well as the supervision of term papers and theses. All HSE University campuses can invite lecturers as part of the programme.
If you are interested in cooperating with HSE University as a Digital Professor, please contact the Department of Internationalisation at digitalprofessors@hse.ru or submit an application (in Russian) here.
See also:
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As part of its Digital Professors programme, HSE University invites international lecturers to work with students remotely. One of the participants of the programme is Dr Ivan Ivanchei, Research Assistant of the Department of Experimental Psychology at Ghent University (Belgium). He conducted an elective course at HSE University entitled ‘Introduction to Computer Modeling of Cognitive Processes.’
‘Students Have Broadened Their Horizons and Made the First Steps in Financial Mathematics’
Cedric Bernardin from Université Côte d’Azur collaborated with HSE University as a Digital Professor in the second semester of the 2021/2022 academic year. He taught a course on MDP theory with finance applications at the Faculty of Mathematics. Prof. Bernardin shared his impressions of this experience with the HSE News Service.
‘I Admire HSE Students’ Eagerness to Learn, to Discuss, to Broaden Their Perspectives’
Robert Romanowski was a ‘Digital Professor’ at HSE University in November 2021. In his interview for the HSE News Service, he talked about the specifics of online teaching, his course on Strategic Branding, and the skills that are essential for marketing professionals today.