The winners of the research leadership competition were 18 Russian universities.
The Russian Ministry of Education and Science announced the final results of the competition for the participation of Russian universities in the Priority 2030 program. St. Petersburg Mining University is one of the 18 winners who will receive both the base grant and the special grant in the field of “Research Leadership”. Funding for the special grant for Mining University will total 142 million rubles by the end of 2022.
“The scale of Priority 2030 significantly exceeds all previous educational programs. 106 universities from all federal districts have already participated in it. All of them will receive the basic part of the grant in the amount of 100 million rubles. The second stage of the selection process included the universities whose development programs go beyond the usual models. We expect the winning universities to become the reference points of scientific and technological development on the map of Russia,” said Dmitry Chernyshenko, the Chairman of the Council for Support of Programs for University Development within the framework of the Priority 2030 Program.
Valery Falkov, Head of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, emphasized that the contest committee assessed not the universities' current status, but the "ambitious goals, breakthrough nature of the scientific research and technological leadership. According to him, the program participants should become a link between university science and industry.
The strategy of St. Petersburg Mining University, supported at the federal level, is aimed at creating a scientifically grounded concept of decarbonization of enterprises of mineral complex, including the processes of geological exploration, production, transportation, and processing of oil and gas.
For extractive companies, it will be, for example, researches on the creation of optimal technologies of CO2 capture and utilization, reduction of emissions during generation of liquefied hydrocarbon gases and liquefied natural gas.
A wide range of scientific work is envisaged in the sphere of hydrocarbon processing. In particular, research on the creation of wasteless technology of catalytic processing of carbon dioxide with the formation of chemically pure organic substances - alcohols, acids, and hydrocarbons, carbonization of anthropogenic red mud with flue gases of sintering furnaces at alumina refineries, processing of anthropogenic phosphate rock (phosphogypsum) by carbon dioxide mineralization with associated extraction of concentrates of rare-earth metals.
In addition, a separate strategic project on the use of hydrogen fuel as a carbon-neutral element will be implemented.
