They will present their scientific projects to experts from leading mineral resource companies and flagship universities, dedicated to improving the efficiency of production and use of natural resources, as well as reducing the technogenic load on the environment. The event was organised in cooperation with the International Competence Centre in Mining Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO.
The XIX International Students and Young Scientists Forum-Contest "Topical Problems of Subsoil Use", organized under the auspices of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO, started on Monday, May 22, at the St. Petersburg Mining University. Over a thousand delegates from Russia, Iran, China, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, India, as well as African and Latin American countries take part in it.
Among the areas included in the list of scientific interests of the new generation of researchers are integrated development of oil and gas fields and transportation of hydrocarbons, modern technologies for its deep processing, climate change, environmental protection and the principles of sustainable development of mining. They will be presenting their reports on these and other topics throughout this week, and the results of the competition will be summarized only on Friday.
Although, the forum is based on the Olympic principle: the main thing is not to win, but to participate. Traditionally, there are no winners, the laureates in each category are usually 4-5 people whose projects look the most convincing, both in terms of scientific novelty, and in terms of the prospects for their implementation in real production. In other words, the task of the jury is not to determine the absolute leaders, but to identify the most motivated young people to become scientists or engineers.
Their visit to St. Petersburg is not only an opportunity for them to compete with their peers, but also to demonstrate their potential to the leading specialists of the industry. For this purpose, in addition to sectional meetings, the organizers have provided several foresight-sessions on the topic of strategic development of Russia and the world, as well as lectures, which will read academics of RAS and top managers of flagship domestic companies. In other words, the Forum "Current Problems of Subsoil Use" is not so much a competition as it is an open discussion platform, where the problems of mineral resources and fuel and energy complexes of Russia and the world are discussed and ways of their solution are proposed.
The forum was launched by Vladimir Litvinenko, Rector of the Mining University, who reminded us that natural resources are the foundation of any economy in the world. However, they are not freely available. In order to monetize natural resources and direct raw materials toward the social and economic development of society, they must first be found, extracted, processed and then used to create the product of final consumption.
"Technology has recently advanced so far that the requirements for a mining engineer have changed beyond recognition. The diploma is no longer the measure of a graduate's qualifications. For employers, every year it becomes more and more important to have additional competences, as well as their scientific content. This requires technical universities to increase the share of scientific support of the educational process," stressed Vladimir Litvinenko.
He also noted that the number of structural subdivisions of higher educational institutions should obligatory include problem laboratories and scientific centers, whose employees are exempt from the mandatory teaching activity and are full-time scientists of the university. This will allow to solve several urgent tasks at once: firstly, to ensure the quality level of research aimed at improving the efficiency of the industry, and secondly, to attract the most promising students and graduate students to the research, i.e. to lay a solid foundation for the training of future scientists.
"Many institutions of higher education consciously consider scientific activity as a separate segment in their structure. But the scientific, educational and social environment of a modern university should be aimed at solving the whole complex of interrelated tasks. They include training personnel for industry, generation of new fundamental knowledge, ensuring progress, performance of research aimed at implementation of applied innovations into production. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to attract to scientific activity not full-time faculty, but, above all, the staff scientists, to create laboratories that can ensure the reliability and quality of the empirical results obtained by students, to improve training programs taking into account the current realities, "- Litvinenko appealed to the audience.
He said that more than 90% of the public bachelor's curricula do not include disciplines on the methodology of experimentation, the reliability of the results obtained, the foundations of metrology. It means that the graduates of the corresponding areas of training do not meet the demands of the labor market at all. In this regard, the abandonment of the two-tier system of education in favor of a specialist degree, which was announced by President Vladimir Putin, seems to be absolutely correct decision aimed at the implementation of state objectives.
"No one will raise our economy for us, no one will protect our country. This is our common mission. In order to fulfill it we need to unite our efforts, turn from consumers into creators and do everything possible to unlock your potential with maximum benefit for the society" - Vladimir Litvinenko addressed to the participants of the forum "Topical problems of subsoil use".
Many young scientists consider the contest as a launching pad for their future career. After all, here you can express yourself as a talented researcher and attract the attention of potential employers. For example, Danil Islamgulov from St. Petersburg Mining University is engaged in improving the development of high-viscosity oil deposits. He says that his interest in this subject is due to the fact that "the current state of the oil and gas industry is characterized by a change in the structure of the resource base in favor of the growing share of hard-to-recover reserves."
"Such a situation leads to the necessity of selecting the optimal method to increase oil recovery, taking into account the peculiarities of physical and chemical properties of fluids and geological and physical characteristics of the object under study. This will allow to increase the level of production in the field in the most efficient way with the least additional costs", - explained the relevance of his project Danil Islamgulov.
Kirill Gerasimov from Yuri Gagarin Saratov State Technical University is dealing with the application of GIS-technologies for assessment of ecological condition of urban soils in industrial areas. He reminds that nowadays complex environmental monitoring is one of the priority directions of nature management. At the same time "soil, unlike air and water environments, is subjected to stronger anthropogenic impact, absorbs pollutants faster and transforms them very slowly".
"The results obtained during the study of samples using conventional methods were used by us to build maps of the ecological condition of soils using GIS-technologies. They clearly demonstrated that higher values of test-objects germination are observed in aqueous extracts from soil samples taken in the immediate vicinity of the territory of one of the local enterprises. At a distance of 2-3 kilometers from it, the level of toxicity of the soil decreases significantly," said Kirill Gerasimov.
Xiaojiang Wen from the Chinese University of Mining and Technology is working to improve the efficiency of natural gas production. Specifically to minimize the risk of casing deformation and failure, which "in more than half the cases occurs at the interface between soft and hard rock layers." In his presentation he told about the laboratory experiments aimed to reduce such accidents due to the use of composite materials.
Congratulatory telegrams to the participants and organizers of the contest were sent by the Aide to the Russian President Andrey Fursenko, Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov, Governor of Yugra Natalia Komarova, Executive Secretary of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO Tatiana Dovgalenko. She noted that "the forum contributes to achievement of sustainable development goals - from poverty eradication and inequality reduction to climate problems, biodiversity conservation and responsible use of natural resources."
The head of St. Petersburg Committee on Science and Higher Education, Andrey Maksimov, greeted the delegates on behalf of St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov. He reminded that Russian higher school, including the first technical university in Russia, St. Petersburg Mining University, was founded before the United States.
"It is no coincidence that the Mining University became a platform for such a serious competition, it is a basic educational institution for a huge number of companies and enterprises, its graduates are in demand in the labor market. A unique material base has been created here, and there is an excellent teaching staff. As for the forum itself, thanks to such events we look to the future with confidence. I have no doubt that the level of the event as well as reports of the participants will be up to the mark," Andrei Maksimov assured those present.
It should be noted that the participants of the opening ceremony and plenary discussions were Academician of Russian Academy of Sciences Leopold Leontiev, President of Russian Mining Industrialists Association Valery Yazyev, Paul Chisale, Vice Chancellor of Copperbelt University (Zambia), Dr. Iyambo, Senior Geologist of the Namibian Geological Survey, Hadi Goudarzi, Advisor on Science and Education at the Iranian Embassy in Russia, Oscar Heredia Vargas, Rector of San Andrés Major University (Bolivia) and several other distinguished guests.
