St Petersburg University announces annual Andrey Pavlenko research and social project contest

St Petersburg University Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies

This contest is held among undergraduate students, master’s students, postgraduate students and clinical residency students at St Petersburg University. Participants are required to prepare a research or social project aimed at improving physical, mental and social health. Applications may be submitted by individual authors or by teams of up to five persons. Young researchers do not have to limit themselves to one academic field but are also allowed to develop a multi-disciplinary project. An important criterion for appraisal will be the possibility of putting the idea into practice.

To participate in the contest, it is possible to submit applications for support of projects that are only in the planning stage or for ones that are already underway.  It is also possible to apply for encouragement of authors who have completed projects, as long as they were brought to a close no earlier than a year before the deadline for submission of applications to the contest.

The contest is being held in the following categories:

• Recent or Ongoing Research in a Specific Field (a research project)
• Applied Research in a Specific Field (a research project)
• Technologies to Promote Preventive Information on Diseases / Health Threats (a social project)
• Improvement of the Quality of Life and Human Health (a social project)

The winners will receive a scholarship of 15,000 roubles a month over the course of ten months.

Andrey Pavlenko was a distinguished surgical oncologist who headed the Oncology Department at St Petersburg University’s Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies.  In the spring of 2018, the physician learned that he had stage-three stomach cancer.  For the next year and a half, he fought off the disease, continuing to consult and operate on patients and to share his knowledge with students and colleagues.

Applications for the competition will be accepted online from 1 February to 13 March on the St Petersburg University portal.

Having become a patient himself, the oncologist created the project ‘A Human Life’, through which he told about his disease and about the difficulties that he encountered during his treatment.  He also helped other onco-patients to understand how to live with a diagnosis of cancer, what to do and what mistakes to avoid in order to increase their chances of recovery.  At the same time, he came up with the idea of starting the School of Practical Oncology, an academic programme bringing together all of the world’s most effective practices in the treatment of cancer and allowing young professionals to upgrade their skills many times over.  Mr Pavlenko emphasised: ‘There are many wonderful textbooks, but a surgeon is a person who works with their hands and their head and has to do that constantly’.

In January of 2020, Andrey Pavlenko departed this life. The projects that he began live on.

Detailed information about the contest is available on the University portal.