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Dmitry Krutoy, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Russian Federation, paid a working visit to the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University. He familiarised himself with the infrastructure of the university and discussed with Rector Vladimir Litvinenko the prospects of cooperation between our states in the scientific and educational sphere.

A delegation from the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University paid a working visit to the Belarusian city of Polotsk, where it held a number of meetings with representatives of the local business and scientific and educational community. The parties discussed the most promising areas of co-operation, including academic exchange of students and teachers, as well as the creation of needle coke production at the Naftan Refinery using the technology developed by the scientists of the Russian university.

One of the priority tasks of the current modernisation of the higher education system is to increase the role of the institute of mentoring. After all, the educational process should not only contribute to the professional development of students through the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, but also provide the process of moral education of young people. Aristotle argued that the fate of empires ‘depends on the effectiveness of this activity’, and Johann Pestalozzi and Konstantin Ushinsky called it ‘the main purpose of the school’.

The delegation of the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, as part of its visit to the Islamic Republic of course, could not help but visit Tehran. Naturally, this was not about tourism, but about getting acquainted with the largest research institute. This item of the program was separately prescribed in the “road map” of interuniversity cooperation with Shiraz University.

The International Monetary Fund has reported that by the end of the first quarter of 2024, Nigeria has fallen from second to fourth place in Africa in terms of GDP, behind Egypt and Algeria. Why can’t an oil-rich country that was producing almost 2 million barrels per day before the pandemic monetize its natural resources and improve the quality of life of a population that has already reached 229 million? Could the reason be the proverbial “green transition” that has reduced demand for fossil fuels?

The culmination of the visit of the delegation of St. Petersburg Mining University to the Republic of Zimbabwe was a working meeting with Amon Murwira, Head of the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development of this country.

A representative delegation from the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University paid a working visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the course of negotiations with their foreign colleagues, scientists from the oldest technical university in Russia reached specific agreements on areas of joint scientific research.

Almost a year after the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed on May 12, 2023 a decree on improving the system of higher education, the purpose of which is to ”qualitatively improve the process of personnel training to meet the long-term needs of various sectors of the national economy”, a seminar-meeting ”Personnel support of technological sovereignty” was held in Almetyevsk, in the south-east of the Republic of Tatarstan.

SCImago research group has updated its influential annual international ranking of scientific journals. The publication of St. Petersburg Mining University ’Journal of Mining Institute’ has become the best of 566 Russian journals indexed by the world’s leading Scopus database. It ranks first in the country in all three of its subject areas - geology, geotechnology and economics. In the latter two, ’Journal of Mining Institute’ became the only journal with Russian jurisdiction to make it into the first quartile.

Rectors Vladimir Litvinenko of the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University and Hanoi University of Mining and Geology Hai Tran Thanh signed an agreement on international co-operation. In particular, the parties agreed to join efforts in such areas as training competent personnel for the mineral resources sector of the two countries, increasing academic mobility, increasing publication activity and a number of others.