Polytechnic University at the UASR Silk Road University Alliance events

The Silk Road Alliance of Silk Road Universities (UASR) launched a major international forum, UASR Events 2021, this week. The organizers are Xi’an Jiaotong University (China) and Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Let us remind that Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University is not only a member of the Alliance but also, since November 2016, a member of the Executive Committee of UASR, and together with other leading world universities takes an active part in joint activities. This year, the key theme of the forum was sustainable development in a post-pandemic society.

The series of events began with the meeting of the UASR Executive Council Meeting on November 15, 2021. The gathering was welcomed by UASR Executive Vice Chairman, Vice President for International Affairs of Xi’an Jiaotong University Guang Xi, after which the Secretary General of UASR, Director of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange of Xi’an Jiaotong University Professor Changzhong He gave a brief overview of the activities over the past year. Then, representatives of universities made proposals for the development of universities within the framework of UASR.

On behalf of SPbPU, Prof. Dmitry ARSENYEV, vice-rector for international affairs, addressed the participants. I am sure that the UASR Events 2021 forum will help us to intensify and expand our activities in this rather difficult time of the pandemic, emphasized Dmitry ARSENIEV. The vice-rector for international affairs also noted that the university fully supports all ideas to optimize the activities of the Alliance for the next year, and on behalf of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University expressed a number of suggestions.

In particular, Polytech has evaluated the UASR virtual summer courses conducted jointly with the UNESCO International Center for Engineering Sciences and proposed to place the International Polytechnic Summer School online programs on the Alliance’s platform. The International Polytechnic Summer School contains more than 40 programs in English. Most of them are now being implemented in an online format. This year, despite the coronavirus pandemic, over 500 international students joined the Polytechnic summer school, half of whom were from our partner universities in China, emphasized Dmitry ARSENIEV.

Polytechnic University can contribute to the UASR proposal for the «Human Civilization in Museums» course. SPbPU has a contract with the oldest Russian museum of anthropology and ethnography Kunstkamera. The university also offered the option of demonstrating virtual tours of the Polytechnic Museum, which contains many interesting exhibits on the history of the development of science and technology, samples of technical devices, and historical items.

Another proposal made by SPbPU was the International Student Project Marathon. At a time of pandemic and closed borders, the Marathon system allows international students to gain valuable practical experience and take part in international projects. The idea of this format is that students and professors from several foreign universities form an international team and jointly implement a real project proposed by either a company or university professors. The team works under the guidance of company experts and university professors. At the end of the semester, students present their projects to a joint international panel of professors and experts. In the current epidemiological situation, it can all be done online and remotely, gaining both scholarly and project experience and a unique digital communication experience.

In conclusion, we support your Cultural and Artistic Marathon Program. As you know, St. Petersburg is the cultural capital of Russia. Many cultural events are held at Polytechnic, we are ready to invite our professors and students to place photo and video presentations of cultural events on the UASR platform, said Dmitry ARSENIEV.

The following days of the Forum were devoted to thematic sessions on sustainable architecture, sustainable production, and sustainable energy. Deputy Director for International Activities of IMMT, Associate Professor Anton NAUMOV took part in the section devoted to sustainable production and materials and presented a paper on «New Materials and Additive Technologies» covering the entire range of scientific work of the Institute of Machinery, Materials and Transport.

Prepared by the SPbPU International Office