The Third Congress of Young Scientists has started in Sochi

The Third Congress of Young Scientists is a key event of the Decade of Science and Technology announced by the Decree of the President of Russia in order to strengthen the role of science and technology in solving the most important tasks of the development of society and the country. The Congress sets the main vectors of scientific and technological development of Russia and acts as a major platform for dialog between advanced and fundamental science, government authorities and the real sector of the economy. Polytechnic actively participates in the work of the large-scale forum.

The Congress is organized by the Roscongress Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and the Coordination Council for Youth Affairs in Science and Education of the Presidential Council for Science and Education. The operator of the Decade of Science and Technology is the Autonomous Nonprofit Organization «National Priorities». The forum platform is the federal territory of Sirius.

On the first day of the forum there was a discussion on the topic «Attracting foreign youth to Russian science: new opportunities and proven practices». Involvement of foreign youth in Russian science is one of the priorities of the state policy. The panelists discussed the following issues: what factors influence the decision of foreign young scientists to choose Russia as a place for scientific research, what tools for attracting foreign youth to conduct research are effective, and how to improve the attractiveness of Russian scientific institutions and universities for foreigners. Representatives of leading Russian universities discussed what forms of support for foreign youth are effective for their successful adaptation to the Russian scientific environment.

The discussion, moderated by Irina Karelina, Executive Director of the Global Universities Association, took part Konstantin Mogilevsky, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of Russia: The number of foreign students in Russia today exceeds the number of foreign students who were in the Soviet Union. Last year their number amounted to 351 thousand people, and this year, according to preliminary data, it has increased to 355 thousand students. What is the career trajectory of young people who from abroad come to us to study? About 8-9 percent stay in Russia to work. In principle, this is normal. We do not have the main task of keeping them here. Our task is to educate people, immerse them in Russian culture and bring them back to their homeland so that they would understand Russia, be friends of Russia and make a career there thanks to good education received here.

He also noted that Russia is interested that these 8-9 percent should be highly qualified personnel, young scientists. To do this, we need to think about how to improve the quality of entrants. What to do with the competitive environment that exists in the world, when universities compete for talent? For example, to add grants, organization of joint research with foreign teams to the quota system. A person who is offered additional bonuses (ticket, accommodation, medical insurance) is better interested in staying here.

Dmitry Arseniev, Vice-Rector for International affairs of SPbPU, shared Polytechnic University’s successful experience in working with international students: Attracting postgraduate students is only the beginning of the whole work. It is not enough to attract talented young people — they need to be motivated and retained. Here we need to include support and motivation mechanisms: targeted scholarship programs to support young scientists, Best International Grant for PhD (BIG PhD) competition to support the best foreign PhD students and their scientific supervisors, involvement of talented young people in working groups of R&D projects, international polytechnic gas pedal. We make full use of the potential of the Advanced Digital Technologies world-class scientific center.

More than 65 percent of Polytechnic University’s foreign postgraduate students are graduates of the university. This means SPbPU has solved the problem of retention. 40 percent of foreign graduate students are officially employed at the university.

The results of their scientific activity are impressive and the percentage of successful defenses is quite decent. Over the last three years, about 25 of our foreign graduates have stayed to work and continue their careers at our university, summarized Dmitry Arseniev.

Andrei Keller, Director of Sociocenter, emphasized the importance of receiving the appropriate level of education and involving students in scientific research. This has resulted in an almost twofold increase in the number of foreign postgraduate students at Russian universities.

Dmitry Livanov, Rector of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, spoke about youth laboratories as a tool to support the inflow of young people from Russian and international universities.

Marina Borovskaya, President of the Southern Federal University, Chairman of the Council of Rectors of Higher Education Institutions of the South of Russia, highlighted accents in defining programs of scientific and academic leadership of higher education institutions in the southern region of the country. She spoke about three basic strategic projects to attract young foreign students: soil management and agroclimatology, full-cycle technology for express development of functional materials of low-carbon economy under the control of artificial intelligence, social design of coherent environment of the future.

Rector of the Donbass State Technical University Dmitry Vishnevsky spoke about projects to train engineers with knowledge of Asian and Eastern languages.

Larisa Efremova, Vice-Rector for International Activities of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, highlighted among the tools of work the association of foreign students, which is actively supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The Association has its own platform working both within the country and with the student community of various universities around the world. The second mechanism that PFUR actively uses is the association of alumni of Russian and Soviet universities.

Oleg Nagornov, First Vice-Rector of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, noted that as a core university of Rosatom, MEPhI is recruiting foreign students due to the state corporation’s objectives. World-class laboratories are searching for postgraduate students in two tracks: technological and research.

Danis Nurgaliev, Vice-Rector for Oil and Gas Technologies, Nature Management and Earth Sciences of Kazan Federal University, shared the experience of KFU. He noted the importance of an attractive environment for international students — ranging from geopolitics to domestic issues.

New international partnerships open up opportunities for the development of science against the background of restrictions on the presence of Russian universities and scientists in projects of unfriendly countries. Summarizing the results of the session, the participants noted that the interest of foreign youth in Russian research is growing. Every year more and more students choose postgraduate programs and plan to participate in various projects of Russian universities.