Polytechnic University and TU Graz hold the third strategic online meeting

The series of strategic meetings between Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and Graz University of Technology (TU Graz; Austria) continues. Recall that the initiative to hold such events was taken by the rector of the Austrian university, Professor Harald KAINZ. The meeting, which was the third in a row, was attended by coordinators of the international offices, professors and young scientists from SPbPU and TU Graz.

The key topics of the online discussion were attracting new participants to the International Student Project Marathon searching for new contacts and opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation. We are very pleased that the strategic partnership between TU Graz and SPbPU is developing dynamically. The fact that we are looking for new ideas and perspectives shows that the universities have a very strong mutual interest in each other,, — commented TU Graz Coordinator for Strategic Partnerships Ms. Barbara BOETTGER.

Graz University of Technology is a permanent member of the International Student Project Marathon, which Polytech has been held since 2019. The joint experience of SPbPU and TU Graz has shown worthy results: 10 joint scientific articles were published as a result of the implemented projects, 6 applications for participation in international scientific grants were submitted, and scientific results were presented at 7 international conferences.

One of the most successful examples of interaction between scientific groups within the framework of Marathon is the work of the scientific group of the Institute of Machinery, Materials, and Transport (IMM&T SPbPU) and the Institute of Materials Science, Joining and Forming TU Graz, represented by Professor Sergio AMANCIO, Associate Professor of Graz University, Head of Lightweight materials and structures lab Oleg PANCHENKO and Deputy Director for International Activity of IMM&T Associate Professor Anton NAUMOV. In international co-authorship colleagues and students from SPbPU and TU Graz published a joint article in the scientific journal of the first quartile «Journal of Materials Research and Technology», another joint publication was published in the collection of conference articles «Minerals, Metals, and Materials Series». At the moment the authors are in the process of working on the next scientific article, as well as continue to develop joint research activities.

Three elements of successful cooperation are financial support, joint projects and joint publications. All of these are very important for scientists, contribute to increasing the intensity of work and achieving concrete results,, — commented Anton NAUMOV.

Our collaboration with SPbPU began in 2019 as part of the Student Marathon. Since then, we have investigated different solid-phase welding processes together. Thanks to our joint experiments, both universities have been able to make several scientific publications. We are currently working on the development of a temperature model for a new process of friction stir-fill spot welding (RFSSW) for aluminum alloys, and we are also planning a publication on this topic,, — said TU Graz professor Sergio AMANCIO..

Other goals for IMM&T and TU Graz include the creation of a joint PhD program. To date, the parties are at the stage of agreeing on the format of the agreement.

In addition to the already implemented projects, the participants of the online meeting presented their ideas and scientific areas for the creation of new working groups in the future. Maxim MAXIMOV, Associate Professor at the Higher School of Materials Physics and Technologies of IMM&T, made a presentation «Atomic Layer Deposition of metal oxides: synthesis and application (LIBs)». The scientist presented the work of the research group on the development of lithium-ion batteries and new approaches to improve them — in particular the method of atomic layer deposition. Maxim MAXIMOV also spoke about the development of thin-film battery materials for sensors, sensors, implantable devices, and Internet of Things devices.

Associate Professor at the Institute of Computer Science and Technology Vadim PACK presented four projects: «Measuring Season Arctic Birds Migration Using Convolutional Neural Networks», which aims to study the nature of bird migration using radar scanning data, «Remote Marine Litter in the Arctic Region Sensing», which aims to design special equipment capable of recording the movement of debris in Arctic waters. The objective of the third project, «Sea Ice Remote Sensing», is the application of satellite technologies for monitoring the state of the Arctic Ocean. Finally, the «Multi label large scale text classification in the legal domain» project is aimed at developing an artificial neural network model for text classification in a multilingual base, including Russian.

TU Graz Professor Wolfgang SLANY presented his research directions and expressed his readiness to cooperate within the framework of the Student Project Marathon. Earlier, Professor SLANY had already come to SPbPU with a master class on mobile app programming, lectured at the Department of Computer Intelligent Technologies, and supervised a team of TU Graz students during the first launch of the Marathon in 2019.

Senior lecturer of Graduate School of Business Engineering Alice DUBGORN made a presentation on the main activities of the school. Even before the strategic meeting, the Austrian side showed interest in cooperation in the field of business engineering. During the presentation, the Austrian colleagues confirmed their intention to join the Student Project Marathon to work on joint projects on management technologies and business processes.

Summing up the strategic meeting SPbPU and TU Graz Coordinators for Strategic Partnerships Ms. Barbara BOETTGER and Ms. Lana KALIKINA once again noted the mutual interest of scholars of both universities for joint research activities. Russian and Austrian colleagues agreed to hold soon a series of local online conversations to identify new tasks and areas of work. In addition, the professors will discuss the details of cooperation within the framework of the International Student Project Marathon.

Prepared by the SPbPU International Office