Hmayak Hovhannisyan was born on April 8, 1960 in Yerevan.

Mr. Hovhannisyan graduated from the Moscow Lomonosov University in 1982. He is a philosopher, political scientist, Philosophical Sciences PhD and Doctor of Political Sciences.

From 1982-1986 he did his postgraduate studies at Moscow State University. From 1986-1988 he worked at the Moscow Academy of Social Sciences. From 1988-1992 he worked first as a senior scientific associate and later leading scientific associate at the Department of Philosophy and Sociology of Yerevan State University. In 1991 he was the president of the RA Union of Political Scientists. He spent the next four years as a visiting Chief Expert in Republics of the Caucasus in the Russian State Douma.

1999-2003 was his first term as a deputy of the NA (proportional list of the Unity Alliance) and he sat on the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations. He was a member first of the Unity Faction, later was not a member of any faction or deputy group and in the end headed the Agrarian Industrial People's Union Deputy Group.

On May 25, 2003 he was reelected to the NA from the proportional list of the National Unity Party and he currently sits on the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations. Since March 2004 he has not been is not involved in any faction or deputy group, has no political party affiliation.

Mr. Hovhannisyan is not married.