<Title language-id="en_US">Vladimir Putin: “Far Eastern Federal University will become powerful intellectual base for the whole region”

On September 8, 2011 the meeting headed by the Chairman of the Russian Federation Government Vladimir Putin took place at the territory of the new FEFU campus, concerning the prospectives of FEFU development. Vice Prime Minister of Russian Federation Igor Shuvalov, Deputy Minister for Education and Science Alexey Ponomarev, FEFU President Dr. Vladimir Miklushevskiy, Primorskiy Kray Governor Sergey Dar’kin, heads of 24 leading Russian universities and other officials took part in the discussion.

Before the meeting Vladimir Putin had a look at the future campus and particularly at the Building №4 — one of the hotels where the participants of APEC Meeting 2012 will stay. Apart from that, the Prime-Minister was familiarized with the “Smart-Campus” Project — a unique electronic infrastructure of the whole university with a system of controlling educational, scientific, financial and administrative processes and various students services (for example, a campus card, that will serve as a payment means, electronic pass to the university, library pass etc.). This project is one of the most up-to-date projects in the world and has no analogues at the other Russian universities: only the novelty products and specially developed innovations will be used for realization of “Smart Campus” Project. The Prime-Minister highly evaluated the project and added that it will be advantageous to implement such projects in other Russian universities.

— In Russia such a great project is being realized for the first time. It can be compared with the construction of Moscow State University, which total area is about a million square meters. The area of FEFU on Island Russkiy is 800 thousand square meters. This university is unique in terms of infrastructure, educational and scientific research processes. It is necessary to attract talented students and highly skilled specialists to FEFU. Human resources of FEFU can be developed with the help of Far Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Science and other Russian leading institutions, — added the Prime Minister.

The issue of FEFU academic mobility and human resources was discussed at the Board of University Presidents in August. We can already see the first results: for example, five teachers of Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute would like to teach at FEFU. “I’m impressed by what I’ve seen at Far Eastern Federal University”, — says Dr. Mikhail Strikhanov, the President of MEPHI.

FEFU President Dr. Vladimir Miklushevskiy informed:

— At the moment, we pay attention to the internationalization of educational process and our strategic goal is to make FEFU a really international university. The number of foreign students grows; starting from Fall 2012 we’ll introduce several academic programs in English. FEFU teachers are to be taught English here and to be sent to study English abroad. Several projects are being realized at FEFU now: human resources development, academic mobility program, attraction of new students, and modernization of educational process.

Another priority of FEFU, according to Deputy Minister for Education and Science Alexey Ponomarev, should be involvement of the region's leading companies into the FEFU activity.

"Large-scale investment projects in mining, processing and transportation of oil and gas, construction of shipyards and a spaceport "Vostochny" in Amurskaya oblast are implemented in the Far East. They require not only human resources, but also innovative development, introduction of new and unique projects. To implement such an interaction FEFU has a real advantage — close integration with FEBRAS, and the possibility of using existing base of fundamental researches. By the way, more than 300 researchers of FEBRAS are already working at FEFU, or will start working this year. In the new phase of FEFU development it is necessary to keep developing and improving the fundamental trends. This is achieved through collaboration with industrial companies ", — said Alexey Ponomarev. 

Summing up the meeting, Vladimir Putin noted that Far Eastern Federal University should become a powerful intellectual base of the region. While calling the Presidents of leading Russian universities upon for active cooperation with their Far Eastern counterpart, the Prime Minister stressed that first of all it is the implementation of tasks of national importance, as well as a new milestone in the development of higher education in Russia.