Victor Koksharov: "The Year Was not Easy, but We Have Made Significant Progress"

12:21, March 20, 2023

UrFU Rector shares the main outcomes of 2022

The Rector of the Ural Federal University, Victor Koksharov, presented the results of the university's achievements in 2022 and plans for 2023 at the regular annual conference of university staff and students. Main points of his speech are reported in the latest issue of the Ural Federal Newspaper (No. 5 of March 20).

"Of course, the past year has not been an easy one. But what kind of years have we had, that have been easy? Every year for the last 10 years we had difficulties," Victor Anatoliyevich said at the beginning of his speech. - And in spite of all that, we have gone through 2022 with dignity and achieved serious successes, which I would like to share with you".

Unprecedented university admission campaign

According to the Rector, last year (spring 2021/22 and autumn 2022/23 academic years, including the 2022 admission campaign) the university overcame all the challenges it faced. Among the main results, he described "unprecedented enrolments" compared to all previous years. For example, 15,307 people were admitted to all levels and types of study in 2022, compared with 12,886 the year before.

At the same time, the university offers an increasingly wide range of educational programmes. The approval process for new programmes was successfully completed last year: 43.04.03 Hotel Business (Master's Degree), 33.05.01 Pharmacy (Specialist Degree), 40.04.01 Law (Master's Degree). The Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation provided a grant for the development of educational programmes in Artificial Intelligence (budget - 37 million rubles till 2024). The Bachelor's degree programme is already open, and 4 Master's degree programmes are under development. 

Another significant result according to Victor Koksharov is the development of the university's Olympiad activity. In particular, the university has been organizing or participating in the largest Olympiads "Izumrud" and "Izumrud. Student" in all five fields, as well as the All-Russian School Olympiad in 10 subjects and the All-Russian Student Olympiad "I am a Professional'' in four fields. The total number of participants in all Olympiads held with the involvement of the Ural Federal University is more than 50 thousand, including the quotas of the Russian Government for foreigners. Many of the leaders of the Olympiads have chosen the UrFU for admission.

The university is very proud of its scholars. To date, 1,929 students have been awarded named and enhanced scholarships, as well as scholarships from the university's partners. A further 2,853 students have been awarded the title of "Excellent Student".

In addition, the university continues to develop project-based learning, individual pathways, as well as the currently relevant form of graduation "Startup as a diploma" and other modern educational methods, including the use of online technologies. In his speech, Victor Anatoliyevich noted that all the university's online courses that had been published on foreign platforms were moved to the national openu.ru and "are being actively used in the educational process".

Increasing number of developments

"We have made very serious progress in the field of scientific activity. For the first time, the total amount of R&D (Research and Development) and S&T (Science and Technology Studies) provided exceeded the 3 billion roubles mark," - the Rector announced, - "including major works carried out in the interests of Rosatom. The Priority 2030 programme implemented four strategic scientific projects for a total of over 760 million roubles, including 211 million roubles allocated competitively to support 55 scientific teams. Moreover, was won a megagrant from the Russian Government in the amount of 90 million roubles under the leadership of Chandra Ranu Brindaban (India) on the basis of the Chemistry Pharmaceutical Center of the UrFU Institute of Chemical Engineering. New laboratories are being created, in particular, youth laboratories".

Today the UrFU is the leader in the number of dissertation councils and the number of defended postgraduate and doctoral theses. The number of postgraduate students enrolled at the University in 2022 exceeded the indicators of previous years and amounted to 570 people, including 76 foreign citizens.

Among the priority tasks for the current year, the Rector mentioned the growth of the volume of R&D to 3.2 billion rubles. It is planned to increase the number of high technological developments, continue the "Priority 2030" programme and work in the framework of the world-class Scientific and Educational Center (UIREC). Interaction with research institutes and foreign research centers and universities is also continuing, as well as the improvement of the efficiency of postgraduate education, the development of the system of doctoral councils, the attraction of foreign postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows, the expansion of scientific journals, and many other activities. 

Ambitious challenges

"In 2022 we won all five competitions of the Federal Project "University Technological Entrepreneurship" for a total of 246 million roubles! - Victor Koksharov reported. - A start-up studio has been created, more than 2,000 students have been involved, and all the planned events have taken place, including the one at the Sirius Centre in Sochi".

In addition, UrFU ranked first among Russian universities in the number of inventions with 103 applications, almost doubled the number of intellectual activity results and property objects, and earned more than 700 million rubles due to a two-fold increase in revenues from engineering contracts, and much more.

This year the university has ambitious goals. For example, in the area of technological entrepreneurship, the university plans to receive investments of 60 million rubles and develop the UrFU Startup Studio, to create the first seven startup companies, to conduct at least four acceleration programmes with at least 50 startup projects, to attract at least 100 participants to the "Startup as a Diploma" programme (in 2022 - 86), to train at least 3,000 students in the field of "Technological Entrepreneurship", and other tasks.

In the field of intellectual property and technology transfer it is planned to register at least 300 results of intellectual activity, to manage the intellectual rights of UrFU for no less than 16 million rubles, to expand the activities of the student patent office created in 2022, to develop mechanisms for accounting and commercialisation of intellectual rights in educational activities.

As for the engineering and production of high-tech products, the UrFU expects to earn 750 million rubles in 2023 ("A very ambitious goal. We have never approached such numbers before. But now we have every reason to talk about it," said the Rector), launch an engineering development center, ensure the production of FDG (a medical product for oncological diagnostics using PET/CT methods - Ed.) worth at least 30 million rubles, and prepare the launch of the second stage of the cyclotron nuclear medicine center.

About exporting education

"Despite the difficult conditions, we have ensured the admission of international students. We (once again) took second place in the rating of Russian universities' websites in English. We have a very good website thanks to the work of our specialists. Over the last five years, we have increased our income from educational services for foreigners by 25 times and reached more than 500 agreements with foreign partners. Student mobility has also increased. We have identified our priority markets for educational exports. We are developing interaction with foreign students and working on their social integration into life in Russia and into studying at our university," -  the Rector describes the main achievements.

The most important achievement of 2022 has been the "fitting in" of the university as a foreign policy think tank. In this capacity, the UrFU has held a number of events, including seminars, round tables, meetings and visits of state authorities and representatives of the Russian State Duma, conferences, forums, and other events at the highest and middle levels.

Another milestone for UrFU is that as of 1 January this year, in accordance with changes in migration legislation, the university was granted the right to issue students with temporary residence permits for the purpose of education, valid for the duration of their studies and 180 days thereafter.

Reference 

Next issue of Ural Federal Newspaper will appear on 3 April.

• Ural Federal Newspaper

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office. 
info.international@urfu.ru, +7 (343) 375-45-19