Dialogue with Italy

16:05, July 2, 2014

UrFU plans to develop cooperation with Italian universities and companies in the sphere of education and science

On the first day of Modern Italian Film festival Italian delegation visited UrFU. The delegation was represented by Leonardo Bencini, First Counsellor at Italian Embassy in Moscow, Daria Klimenko, representative of the Italian Embassy in Moscow, Maurizio Forte, Director of the Italian Trade Agency in Moscow, Roberto D’Agostino, Italy’s Honorary Consul in Ekaterinburg , Maria Shipitzina, assistant of Italy’s Honorary Consul in Ekaterinburg, and Alexander Shik, Enel company’s area agent for international relations.

The Italian delegation was welcomed by UrFU Rector Victor Koksharov, Maxim Khomyakov, Vice-Rector for International Relations, Yury Brodov, Director of Ural Power Engineering Institute, and Valery Mikhailenko, Director of the Department of International Relations, Institute of Social and Political Sciences.

UrFU Rector Victor Koksharov told the guests about the university’s position in the global system of education. According to the latest research by Expert RA, UrFU is one of the top ten universities in Russia. Besides, UrFU enters top 100 BRIKS universities and 500 world universities, according to QS World University rankings. The primary aim to be achieved by the year 2020 is to enter top 100 World University Rankings. The university receives additional funds from the country’s budget for the purpose of its further internationalization.

Over 1,000 foreign students are currently enrolled at Ural Federal University and there should be not less than 5,000 of them by 2020. About 500 foreign lecturers should be UrFU faculty members by 2020. It is possible to achieve that purpose only by means of corroborating with foreign universities. According to Victor Koksharov, Italian universities proved to be reliable partners. UrFU has cooperation agreements with a number of Italian universities, among them there are Universities of Genoa, Bologna, Turin, Perugia, Bergamo. UrFU students actively participate in internship programs in Italian universities and Italian lectures in different spheres of knowledge often come to UrFU. There is Italian Language and Culture Centre in UrFU.

For several years UrFU corroborates with Enel, one of the leading power companies in the world, which has a number of assets on the territory of Sverdlovsk region (in Reftinsky, Sredneuralsk, etc) and trains the specialists to work for the company. Enel experts are involved into the process of education, they co-author many books with Russian scientists and carry out engineering work at the stations. Yury Brodov, Director of Ural Power Engineering Institute, highlighted that Enel takes an active part in the work with UrFU students, annually the company awards up to 70 students and several young faculty members with scholarships.

Leonardo Bencini, First Counsellor at Italian Embassy in Moscow, said that Italy is interested in cooperating with Russia and attracting more tourists from Russia. It is also important that many Italian students take interest in learning Russian. Cooperation between Russian and Italian industrial companies is also very promising.

“Industrial sectors of Sverdlovsk region we are very interested in are mechanical engineering, plastic and machine parts working. The subject of our greatest interest is cooperation with universities or enterprises having unique experience in metal working”, said Leonardo Bencini.

Thus, UrFU interests are similar to those of Italian universities and companies in many aspects. Cooperation in such spheres as education, science and industry is mutually beneficial.

Victor Koksharov supported the initiatives discussed and expressed the hope that cooperation with Italia will be developed.  There are good political and financial conditions for that. “This year the university has received 775 mln roubles from the Russian government for internationalization and we will be happy to spend a part of this sum for strengthening cooperation with the Italian universities. I do hope that our meeting will trigger implementation at least of two joint projects. One is aimed at learning Russian and another – at founding the centre for titanium working. All the details of those projects will be thoroughly worked at”, said Viktor Koksharov.