The Ural Research and Educational Center Will Combine Mass and Elite Engineering Training Systems

13:54, April 19, 2021

The educational platform of the center was presented at the meeting with Dmitry Chernyshenko

The member universities of the world-class Ural Interregional Research and Education Center will launch cross-cutting Master's and PhD programs for elite researchers, engineers, and technological entrepreneurs. The mass training of engineers will also be improved: Ural Federal University together with the employers has developed a new educational model, based on the project teaching methodology and individual educational programs. This was announced today by Victor Koksharov, Rector of UrFU, during a meeting in Yekaterinburg, which was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko.

"The programs of cross-cutting Master's and PhD programs imply active participation of students in UIREC research projects. Students will be supported by the Center's industrial partners and academic institutions. This will allow supplementing basic training and mastering of digital competences with practical skills, including those using modern equipment," noted Victor Koksharov.

Training of technological entrepreneurs will be a separate cross-cutting direction. Students will be able to develop their own startup in a project-based learning format and defend their final qualification work in the "Startup as a Diploma" format. Acceleration programs of Ural Federal University will be an additional support.

Valery Falkov, the minister of science and higher education of Russia, Vladimir Yakushev, the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Ural Federal District, the governors of the Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, and Kurgan regions as well as the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District also took part in the meeting where the tasks of scientific and educational centers were discussed. In addition, the meeting was attended by the rectors of the regional higher educational institutions and representatives of business - members of the REC.

Dmitry Chernyshenko summarized the preliminary results of the National Project "Science" and announced the upcoming plans and tasks.

"By order of the President of the Russian Federation within the framework of the National Project "Science" we have to create in Russia 15 world-class scientific and educational centers. Now we have 10 of them in operation. This year we will select five more. Most of them are inter-regional, with a total coverage of 20 subjects. It is important that the meeting was attended by regional leaders. As practice shows, it is the involvement of governors that directly determines efficiency indicators of these organizations. REC is one of the tools for implementing development strategies. Many heads of regions are aware of this and came forward with the initiative to create RECs on their territories, even without federal funding. I support these initiatives," said Chernyshenko.

The Deputy Prime Minister also noted that this year it is planned to adopt performance criteria for the evaluation and rating of RECs. At the same time from 2023 there will be an annual rotation, eliminating the weakest and taking in their place the most productive centers from among the regional RECs.

"High-tech workplaces are created and work processes are improved in the regions due to the activity of RECs. These are steps on the way to technological leadership of Russia. During the existence of world-class scientific and educational centers, several dozens of studies have been conducted and their results have been tested in practice together with business. New developments have been implemented in industry, mechanical engineering, waste sorting, and the aviation industry. Some of them have been scaled up," added Dmitry Chernyshenko.

For his part, Vladimir Yakushev said that the real sector of the economy is demonstrating a high level of interest in the activities of the UIREC. For instance, last year financing of the events amounted to nearly 5 billion rubles, 70% of which were extra-budgetary funds.

"The Ural Federal District has a unique situation: there are two world-class scientific and educational centers - the West Siberian and the Ural ones. All six regions of the district are included in the orbit of their activities. Combining the efforts of science, education and business will provide a scientific and technological breakthrough," Yakushev stated.

At the meeting, Valeriy Falkov noted that in order to solve the tasks of the world-level scientific and technological development it is important to have the corresponding competences, that is why large multinational companies should get involved in the work of UIREC.

"Business understands how to turn an idea into a technology or product, knows foreign and Russian markets. In this sense, we consider companies as a driver inside the scientific and educational centers," the minister emphasized.