On March 10, MEPhI rector M.N. Strikhanov has had a meeting with young scientists, PhD students and Master’s degree students of the university.
The tradition of such meetings has existed at the university for many years, and every event turns into a lively conversation on a wide variety of issues: from social issues to the future of the university.
The key topic of the meeting was the academic transformation of the university. Heads of specialized departments, responsible for various directions of the university activity – educational, scientific, financial, economic, etc. – were invited to the event.
The first vice-rector of MEPhI O.V. Nagornov spoke about the current and planned changes in the academic structure of the university, outlined the main stages of the development of MEPhI over the past few years, focusing on the university's participation in the implementation of the federal innovative educational programs in 2006-2008, obtaining the status of the National Research University and participating since 2013 in the Project for Competitiveness Enhancement.
The active, ambitious policy, chosen by the university, contributed to the success of MEPhI in national and international rankings: in national rankings, such as INTERFAX and RAEX, MEPhI is always the leader, showing comparatively high results in the global ratings of THE and QS, while broadening the subject lines. In particular, following the results of the QS subject ranking, published last week (where the university entered the top-100 for the third year in a row in "physics and astronomy"), MEPhI entered the ranking in such areas as "technical sciences and engineering" and "natural sciences" for the first time.
The participants of the meeting presented the results of monitoring of the universities, participating in the Project 5-100, which is annually held by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
Touching upon the issue of university transformation, the representative of the administration remarked that participation in the Project for Enhancing Competitiveness implied a number of major changes, including optimization of the university structure, which would help the university to reach a new level of development. Therefore, it was decided to concentrate on the main scientific directions, uniting educational and innovative components around them. Last year, five new Strategic Academic Units (StrAUs) in the format of independent Institutes were approved by the International Council for Enhancing the Competitiveness of Leading Russian Universities among the world's scientific and educational centers. Thus, the modern structure of the MEPhI includes new Institutes, which combined academic, scientific and innovative activities, that replaced the narrow-educational structural units-faculties.
In continuation of the meeting, the rector M.N. Strikhanov gave the floor to the leaders of the new structural units of MEPhI, who told young scientists about the goals and tasks of the Institutes, what they had already done, and about the problems that required priority solutions. Presentations were made by the Acting Head of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and Engineering (INPhE) N.S. Barbashina, scientific director of Institute of Engineering Physics for Biomedicine (PhysBio), A.V. Kabashin, Deputy Head of the Institute for Laser and Plasma Technologies (LAPLAS) G.V. Krashevskaya, Head of the Institute of Nanoengineering in Electronics, Spintronics and Photonics (NESPI) N.I. Kargin, Deputy Head of the Institute of Cyber Intelligence Systems (ICIS) V.V. Klimov.
Summing up their speeches, M.N. Strikhanov stressed that the further effective development of the university directly depends on the participation of young people in the solution of the problems, which the university faces today, and proposed to be more actively involved in this process.
After that, he suggested switching to the format of the dialogue. Everyone had an opportunity to address directly to the rector, vice-rectors, heads of relevant services.
There were many questions. Here are just a few of them.
Large breaks in the schedule
The break between lectures can be several hours, and the lecturers is forced to waste time, it is also inconvenient for the students.
Answering the question, MEPhI vice-rector V.V. Uzhva noted that this semester there are reparations in many auditoriums, in connection with which a certain number of the audit fund is withdrawn from the timetable, but this situation is temporary.
Rector of MEPhI expressed the opinion that the situation largely depends on the improper scheduling and inattention of personnel, instructed to correct inconsistencies urgently, and in such cases people should click the button “Letter to the rector” on the university's official website.
Internal grants for small scientific groups, creation of a grant system for young scientists, system of post-docs.
MEPhI rector suggested StrAU directors together with the management of Program for Competitiveness Enhancement to develop a certain common model, which considers the possibility of financing post-docs, to create a competitive commission for the selection of projects.
Conducting a briefing on electronic systems
The university has a lot of electronic systems for employees, students and lecturers, and it is unclear how to use them, it is difficult to navigate in them.
The rector proposed to make the optimal architecture of the system and consider this issue at the nearest administration meeting.
Rates for young lecturers
If a young engineer works within the framework of a scientific project, publishes his works, but has a small lecture load, he cannot get an assistant's position, because the entrance time threshold for obtaining a rate is high enough.
Answering the question, the rector of MEPhI stressed that, on the one hand, it is impossible to inflate the teaching staff, but on the other hand, it is impossible to block the way of the youth; it is a deadlock option, therefore, it is necessary to seek a compromise. He proposed to form a working group that would find the necessary balance. The group should include representatives of the administration and jointly develop reasonable standards.
How the rectorate sees the future of the university in a year or two, how stable its modern structure is
The University has deliberately chosen the direction of development and in the next five years it will, and maybe more, exist in such way. At the same time, there may appear some other StrAUs, or existing ones may die, as there is a tough competition, but in isolated exceptional cases. The university is positioned as a profile multidisciplinary university with a technical bias. It will be global, not narrow-minded.
The role of English for the future of MEPhI
Bilingualism is the university's strategy, the rector noted. Each educational program in the Russian language must correspond to the program in English. By the summer of this year, at least 30% of all educational programs should be fully in English, and by September they will already be on schedule. In 2018, it is planned to switch to 100% correspondence of Russian-speaking and English-language programs.
In the course of the meeting with the young staff of the university, rector M.N. Strikhanov responded to a number of other questions. Specific assignments were given to the relevant services on all issues.
At the end of the meeting, the rector of the university noted that one can send their proposals and applications clicking the button "Letter to the rector" (Письмо ректору) on the official website of MEPhI to solve operational issues. None of the issues will be left without attention.
