The University's unlimited opportunities
Professor Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, has paid a visit to St Petersburg University. During the visit of the Indian delegation, SPbU Rector Nikolay Kropachev and his colleagues discussed the opportunities and the main areas of their future cooperation.
At the beginning of the meeting, Nikolay Kropachev told Professor Sharma about the basic principles of the University's work. "Some time ago SPbU chose the path of an open university while most universities in Russia preferred the traditional pattern. Thus, if earlier we could demonstrate only a limited range of opportunities during our acquaintance with the future partners, now our potential has become practically unlimited. We can attract scientists and professors from all over the world to participate in our projects, regardless of which research institute they work directly in," Nikolay Kropachev emphasised during the meeting with his Indian colleagues.
The Rector also noted that the University has a rich experience of direct cooperation with the ministries of other countries as well as large foreign foundations. "We are involved into active cooperation with the German Research Foundation (DFG), and recently we have held a joint competition resulting in the financial support of 9 research projects," SPbU Rector said.
Professor Sharma highlighted that the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India was interested in direct cooperation with the University. "We are happy to develop partnership in various areas, but now our priority is supercomputers-related research in various fields: physics, chemistry, climate modelling, and working with big data technologies and methods," Professor Sharma said.
The Department is particularly interested in supporting young scientists. Ashutosh Sharma told his colleagues at SPbU about the programme, which contributes to increasing the number of young professionals working in India. Another project is business incubators. Due to them the results of scientific research have been applied in thousands of start-up projects.
In his turn, SPbU Rector proposed creating a joint programme with the Department of Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Support enabling students from SPbU and India to study in both countries. Another form of partnership considered by the both parties was holding a joint competition of research projects that would unite Russian and Indian scientists working in the same fields.
At the end of the visit, Sergey Aplonov, SPbU Vice Rector for Research, as well as SPbU professors and associate professors spoke in detail about the potential of the SPbU Research Park.