St Petersburg University and the Republic of Sakha discuss future partnerships and collaborations

In the welcoming speech, the head of the Republic of Sakha Aysen Nikolayev thanked the University and its Rector Nikolay Kropachev for ensuring support for a regional initiative, i.e. a research and educational centre ‘Sever’. This project is also set to open a World Mammoth Centre to study the mammoth fauna. Aysen Nikolayev said that scientists are planning to study climate change and permafrost. St Petersburg University is ready to support joint research groups and make a positive contribution to the development of the centre, said Nikolay Kropachev.

The University ought to ensure support for regions and strengthen their position in Russia and beyond. Strong regions are a strong country. The University is ready to make a step forward to the regions.

Nikolay Kropachev, Rector of St Petersburg University

State-of-the-art facilities to track economic efficiency and research and technological potential of the project is essential to advance the project, said Anastasiia Iarmosh, Vice-Rector for Strategic Development and Partnerships at St Petersburg University. The University has the relevant resources to analyse projects to be carried out at the centre using the resources of the Centre for Expert Advice at St Petersburg University.

'The expert evaluation focuses on revealing: what research and technological potential the project may develop and its economic efficiency; and how the centre can obtain results that it is set to achieve on the world markets through satisfying the world level that the centre requires,' explained Anastasiia Iarmosh.

Additionally, the Yakut colleagues got acquainted with the Research Information Management System (RIMS), i.e. a digital scientific infrastructure management system developed by the University. It incorporates all stages of project implementation (equipment load, workload of project teams, funding, primary data) and allows the heads of the regions to receive objective analytics on the achievement of indicators of the national project 24/7. All these developments are available for the heads of the regions without having to pay for gaining an access, said Nikolay Kropachev, Rector of St Petersburg University.

What Anastasiia Iarmosh also focused on when talking about interaction with partners from various educational and research centres was efficient decision making. In this regard, at the end of 2019, the Distributed Ledger Technologies Centre at St Petersburg University developed a blockchain-based solution ‘CryptoVeche’ that is a reliable platform for remote voting and surveys.  

Anastasiia Iarmosh, Vice-Rector for Strategic Development and Partnerships at St Petersburg University, also said that the University was ready to carry out joint research projects that focus on ethnological expert evaluations of the North of Russia. This is among what the University has always been engaging in. She also invited the guests to: participate in the project to create the Ladoga carbon test site; conduct joint remote sensing studies; and develop metrology techniques.

Aleksandr Babich, Vice-Rector for Student Affairs and Admissions at the University, told the guests about how the University collaborates with the regional centres to attract and support talented school pupils, holds intellectual contests, and develops project-focused activities.

Intellectual competitions ensure cooperation through school Olympiads and student Olympiads. Additionally, what seems to be a promising area for partnerships and collaborations is opening specialised educational and research centres. Since 1963, the University has had a specialised educational and research centre D.K. Faddeev Academic Gymnasium. The School at the M.K. Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University has also become one of the specialised educational and research centres.

All expert evaluations by the Centre for Expert Advice are carried out under the aegis of St Petersburg University. All scientific and technological expert evaluations are carried out at the Research Park at St Petersburg University that is a unique complex uniting 23 resource centres with state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure.

They also discussed opportunities for developing academic programmes to study and popularise the Republic of Sakha. Nikolay Kropachev spoke about similar programmes with a focus on Chinese or Japanese studies. 'To any of our 60 programmes, we can add a block of disciplines that focus on what your region, ministries, or businesses specifically need, for example, in economics or in law,' explained Nikolay Kropachev, Rector of St Petersburg University.

At the end of the meeting, the parties also discussed developing joint academic programmes and online courses on the Coursera platform and the Chinese educational platform XuetangX that would focus on history, culture and economy of the region.