A regular meeting of the Academic Council was held at Mining University. The meeting traditionally began with an Award Ceremony. Various awards and prizes were presented to students and employees of the educational institution. So, within the framework of participation in the International HI TECH exhibition of innovations, four developments of university scientists were awarded diplomas of the 1st degree and gold medals. In particular, “Resource-saving reactor for the production of synthesis gas” (authors: Ilya Beloglazov, Sergey Savchenko, Ruslan Malygin, and Kirill Bekenev) and “Personal head and ear protection equipment with monitoring and alarm functions” (authors: Andrey Nikulin, Dmitry Ikonnikov and Ilya Dolzhikov).
Then the university rector Vladimir Litvinenko took the floor to outline in his speech the most urgent tasks that the university faces.
As of today, the oldest higher technical educational institution in Russia has 6 scientific centers. These are the Geomechanics and Geotechnologies scientific institute, scientific center for Resource Processing, the Arctic Center, and the Ecosystem Center, as well as the scientific and educational center of Digital Technologies.
“These units will accumulate all of the university’s research activities in the main adopted areas. Their mission is to develop our scientific potential, create a modern scientific laboratory complex on the profile of the centers and a full-fledged scientific staff of high-level scientists. The task of each center is to create conditions in which all scientists who are interested in science and associate their future with it could choose the line of research and work in the laboratories of the corresponding division. To put it differently, to involve all scientists in scientific work through the centers formed. This applies to researchers, professors, graduate students, and undergraduates. In the future we plan to spend about 2 billion rubles on equipping new centers and upgrading existing laboratories so that the university’s resource base remains state-of-the-art and meets the latest trends in the development of the mineral resource complex,” Vladimir Litvinenko emphasized.
In order to intensify research activities, it is planned to implement several initiatives at once. So, according to the rector, in just a few years only those dissertations whose authors (Ph.D. candidates) have not only published scientific articles but already have at least 2-3 citations will be allowed for defense. This factor will indicate that the topics raised by the graduate student are of interest to the scientific community and do have novelty.
Other issues the rector raised include the improvement of the system of evaluation of teaching skills by university students. Monitoring of students’ opinions and analysis of the data obtained takes place annually within the walls of the university, the mechanism is being finalized, and as the objectivity increases its importance is growing. The evaluation system allows demonstrating the potential of teachers as lecturers, popularizers of science and educators from the students’ point of view.
In the end, reports on the work of the departments headed by Vasily Lebedev, head of the Editorial and Publishing Center, and Dmitry Simonenko, chairman of the Gornyak Students’ Council.