Society

The polar explorers of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University have concluded the first and only day off of their trip. Both the ”newcomers” and the veterans shared their impressions of the flight and Cape Town with Forpost. Anatoly Ozhigin, design engineer at the Scientific Center “Arctic”:

A delegation from Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University participated in the 32nd International Congress of the Institution of Engineers of Kenya (IEK), which was held under the theme ”Engineering the Future”.

In just a few weeks, in early December, the polar team of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University will depart for the Sixth Continent. The route is traditional. A flight from St. Petersburg to Cape Town, then a passage aboard the research expedition vessel “Akademik Fedorov” from Cape Town to Progress Station. Forpost spoke with the head of the university’s field team, Alexey Bolshunov, about the tasks facing the party this season and what fundamentally distinguishes it from previous years.

Early next week, the Field Team of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University will depart for Cape Town, from where the research expedition vessel Akademik Fedorov will take them to Antarctica.

The British ranking agency Times Higher Education (THE) has published its annual ranking of higher education institutions that hold leading positions in the field of interdisciplinary scientific research. Nearly one thousand institutions were ranked, selected in a preliminary screening from more than 25,000 licensed universities worldwide. Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University is positioned in the 251-300 range. Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University ranked among the Top 10 universities of the Russian Federation.

On Langkawi Island in Malaysia, the fourth meeting of the Joint Russia–Malaysia Commission on Economic, Scientific-Technical, and Cultural Cooperation was held. In addition to the preliminary results of interaction between the two countries for 2025, the parties discussed upcoming events and a whole list of areas of mutual interest: from the Russia–Malaysia Raw Materials Forum to the peaceful use of atomic energy and the import of Russian technologies.

In early November, on Langkawi Island in the Strait of Malacca, a meeting of the Organizing Committee was held to prepare for a representative international summit. The Russian and Malaysian sides reached an agreement in principle to hold it in the autumn of 2026 in the Russian Federation at the venue of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University.

The International Competence Center for Mining Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO, in partnership with the National Association of Mining Engineers and Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, has developed the International Standard for the Training of Mining Industry Engineers (ISREE).

Russia has initiated a raw materials dialogue with the poorest continent. Recently, at Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University in St. Petersburg, the Russia–Africa Raw Materials Dialogue took place, bringing together over 500 representatives from more than 40 African countries and 130 organizations. The focus was on the question crucial for the continent of how to make the long-proclaimed sovereignty of African countries over their natural resources a reality, and to put these resources at the service of their own development.

Educational and scientific ties of the oldest technical university in Russia with universities, government authorities, and industrial circles of the African continent, as a rule, lead to joint projects in business. An example of this is the agreement to create a joint venture for the extraction of mineral resources, IMMA (Infinity Morion Mountainous Area), between the Morion Group of Companies and the Egyptian company Infinity Magic Group Integrated Solutions.