St. Petersburg Mining University held a meeting of the selection committee, which determined the final list of young Russian scientists who will go to study in Germany under a joint program of the German academic exchange service DAAD and the Nedra Consortium of Higher Education. Its title is “Natural Resources - Energy – Sustainability”.
In the final stage of the competition, 34 postgraduate students and new candidates of sciences took part. The level of their research works was evaluated by a competent jury headed by Andreas Hoeschen, head of the DAAD Moscow office. Among the experts were also Karsten Drebenstedt and Berndt Meyer from Freiberg Mining Academy, representatives of St. Petersburg and Ufa universities.
In the end, they approved a list of 20 winners, who will be awarded grants to study at various universities in the Federal Republic of Germany, such as the Technical Universities of Dresden and Clausthal, the Technical Institute of Karlsruhe, the Westphalian Wilhelm University, and several others. The course, lasting from 3 to 6 months, starts already next February.
“The quality of the applicants proved to be very high, so the independent commission, which included Russian and German scientists, had to spend a lot of time to select the best of the best,” Dr. Andreas Hoeschen noted. “Nevertheless, it seems to me that we succeeded. So I’m very happy that these particular fellows will soon come to Germany and further increase their level of competence.
What do the candidate dissertations focus on? For example, the topic of Tagir Muslimov’s project from Ufa Aviation Technical University is autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles and their application in monitoring, inspection, and mapping. And Ivan Sverchkov’s from St. Petersburg Mining University is about thermal utilization of high-ash carbon-containing waste.
Both of these areas, as well as other studies, are extremely relevant today, but in the future, their importance will only increase. Perspectivity and the applied nature of research is one of the obligatory conditions for participation in the program. Motivation is no less important. All candidates had to convince the jury of their readiness to deal with the selected issues “seriously and lastingly”.
“We are honored to collaborate with St. Petersburg Mining University,” Andreas Hoeschen continued. “First of all, it amazingly combines seemingly incongruous things. Everything here breathes with history, but at the same time, it is one of the most progressive research centers. Secondly, Rector Vladimir Litvinenko has managed to consolidate Russian higher technical education institutions that train engineers on the platform of the Nedra consortium of universities. This is essential because the role of such collaborations will only increase in the future. Progress is becoming faster and faster, and to ensure a generational change in the energy complex, to make it more sustainable, we need to develop academic mobility and introduce joint scientific research. Only together we will be able to achieve qualitative results”.
The Head of the Moscow office of DAAD said that there are such associations in Germany, too. One of the most famous is TU9, it unites German engineering universities.
It should be noted that among the winners of the competition for the right to study in Germany were representatives of four members of the Nedra consortium: Ufa Aviation Technical University, Tyumen State University, Gubkin Russian State University and Mining University.
