UrFU Will Continue to Develop Science in Sverdlovsk Region in Cooperation with Academic Institutions

17:07, January 24, 2019

Sergey Kortov and Valery Charushin told the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Presidium about the university’s scientific projects

The close cooperation between the Ural Federal University and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences is the key to the successful development of science in the region. Sergey Kortov, the First Vice-Rector of the Ural Federal University, claimed so in Moscow at one of the meetings of the Russian Academy of Sciences Presidium. He acted as a co-speaker for Valery Charushin, the Branch’s Chairman, member of the UrFU Supervisory Board.

‘Historically, territorially and substantially UrFU and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been working together for many decades,’ Sergey Kortov said. ‘Our relations are maintained on three levels: working on projects (currently 33 joint projects are being implemented), the creation of joint laboratories (10 of them have been created since 2015), and the joint development and implementation of the project “Science” in the region’.

According to Kortov, the university’s cooperation with academic institutions is formulated as a unity of three elements: the creation of world-class Mathematics and New Materials Modeling Research Centers, a Research and Education Center for Advanced Production Technology, and the Tatishchev Innovation and Technology Center.

The university administration is confident that this ensures the involvement of large industrial enterprises of the Sverdlovsk region, such as ZIK, Novator, Vektor, NPO Avtomatika, UOMZ, Rosatom Group enterprises, and other corporations in the projects. All these initiatives are supported by the Presidential Envoy to Ural Federal District and the Governor of the Sverdlovsk region.

Mind you, about 1,000 research fellows at the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences are involved in the integration with UrFU today. Moreover, in 2018, scientists of the Ural Federal University and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences prepared about 1,100 joint publications in the Scopus and Web of Science databases.

Valery Charushin notes that in spite of the fact that the level of integration is rather high, there are still opportunities for improvement. In particular, in the framework of the federal project "Science", the active development of the concept of creating a new research and educational center (REC) "Advanced Industrial Technologies" in the Urals is underway. The project involves the cooperation between the academic institutions of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Ural Federal University, leading corporations and government officials.

‘This is a pivotal project for the region, and we have to fight for the right to create it,’ Charushin emphasizes. ‘We already have the first outlines; we need to work everything out at the highest levels in order to submit the highest quality application for the contest in the spring. In case of victory, we will be able to reach a whole new level of resource base and develop infrastructure projects together. This is our common task, and both the institutes of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the [Ural Federal] University are interested in tackling it. New equipment will work on both structures. The region will only benefit from this.’