The association of engineering universities is becoming the largest in Russia.
On Thursday, December 24, at the online meeting of the Nedra Consortium of Universities, 25 more universities joined. Today the Consortium already has 50 members.
According to Vladimir Borzenkov, Director General of the International Center of Competences in Mining Education under the auspices of UNESCO, who chaired the meeting, about ten more universities are ready to join the community in the nearest months. And the number of educational institutions that have shown interest in the project exceeds a hundred.
The decree on creating the Consortium was signed by Valery Falkov, the Minister of Education and Science of the RF, at the end of October this year. The association of institutions of higher education that specialize in training specialists for the mineral and mining complex was established to coordinate the nationwide efforts to improve the quality of higher education and research in their respective fields. And through that to provide for more effective work of key industries and stable development of Russian economy.
In the next wave of expansion of the Consortium, such leading universities as St. Petersburg State University, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Stankin Moscow State Technological University, Mendeleev Russian Chemical Technology University, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Kazan National Research Technological University, Southern Federal University.
"We have already gathered a large array of universities. With such a strong regional representation we can jointly solve all problems of improving the educational process in the core areas," said Vladimir Borzenkov.
The participants of the association are attracted by the opportunity to consolidate the intellectual and material resources to improve the teaching and learning process, to expand the publication activity, to improve the competence of teachers, to conduct student and postgraduate training at training centers and facilities of partner universities, to share the laboratory equipment.
It is also supposed to collectively participate in improving the system of evaluating the level of competence of practitioners with access to international certification according to the British Engineering Council. These opportunities are offered by the International Center of Competences in Mining Energy Education under the auspices of UNESCO, established on the basis of the St. Petersburg Mining University. The Competence Center will also help to organize educational and scientific cooperation between the consortium participants and their foreign partners, such as Freiberg Mining Academy (Germany) and the University of Leoben (Austria).
