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Saint-Petersburg Mining University and the London Stock Exchange have reached preliminary agreement on cooperation

Mining University and the London Stock Exchange came to agreement on working together in the area of assessing human resource capacities of mining companies. It is expected that cooperation will be carried out within the framework of activities of the International Competence Centre under the auspices of UNESCO.

A working meeting, which was visited by Robert Barnes, Global Head of Primary Markets at the London Stock Exchange, and a delegation from the Mining University, was held in London at 8th of April. The meeting was also attended by Alexander Yakovenko, the Ambassador of Russia to the United Kingdom.

The parties noted that the indicators, which are currently used to value assets of public companies, such as resourcing, do not fully reflect the level of stability and sustainability of businesses. The main reason is that there is no indicator to assess the human resource capacity.

Литвиненко
© Форпост Северо-Запад

According to Vladimir Litvinenko, the Principal of the Mining University, "To own resources is not enough. It is important to know how to improve work efficiency, and who is a responsible entity. Business stability is generally improved through developing staff competency, and company’s executives have to be constantly engaged in this task. To put it differently, if we want to make a full-scale assessment, we need to be able to assess human resource capacities of public companies. It is also important that Stock Exchange would share this information with stock markets."

A new mechanism aimed at determining this indicator was developed by St. Petersburg Mining University in conjunction with its British partner – the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3). It appears that representatives of the London stock exchange are also interested in the new concept.

As Robert Barnes said during the meeting, "We believe that employee qualification definitely affects company profile and its capitalization, as well as sustainable development in the mining industry in general."

Mr. Barnes proposed to prepare a short draft of memorandum, which would "shape relationships between the International Competence Centre for Mining-Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO and the London Stock Exchange". Signing it is supposed to take place in June, during St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Robert Barnes will attend the event as well.

The main idea is that graduates of higher education institutions should work for two or three years as interns and then they should pass the certification. Certification procedure is administered by experts of the professional community. In case of success, the title of "Professional engineer" is awarded, and the person’s name is entered in the national and international registers.

This way, new specialists increase their own career competitiveness and at the same time competitiveness of the companies where they are working. Information on the number of accredited specialists, in its turn, will be one of the indicators of business stability and sustainability.