On May 12, MEPhI hosted the IX Meeting of Student Scientific Societies (SSS) of the Universities of Moscow and the Moscow Region.

The event was opened by MEPhI Rector Vladimir Shevchenko. He greeted the audience and recalled that the university recently celebrated its 80th anniversary of its founding, and all these years it has paid great attention not only to education, but also to science.

“No man has become famous for his thoughts. Both in antiquity, and in the Middle Ages, and today, personal communication, the transmission of ideas, is important. The development of science requires the creation of a scientific environment and the exchange of opinions between people of different ages and different scientific schools. There may be national scientific schools, but there cannot be national science. There may be young scientists, but there cannot be “youth” science,” the rector said.

Vladimir Shevchenko added that it is important for each student to find the direction of scientific activity that will most closely coincide with his interests and talents, and wished that at SSS conferences there would be reports similar to the speech of the famous physicist Alexander Popov, who for the first time demonstrated his brilliant invention at a meeting of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society.

According to the rector, real success in science is measured by how interesting and useful an invention is to other people, to what extent it contributes to progress and helps to move our civilization forward.

Then Anna Ponarskaya, Leading Adviser of the Department for Work with Young Scientists of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, made a report on the results of the SSS 2023 Competition.

273 applications from 76 regions were submitted for participation in the competition of the Ministry of Education and Science. The winners were SSS of 40 universities from 28 regions of the country. The Ministry allocated 100 million rubles to support Student Scientific Societies. Anna Ponarskaya congratulated the winners, which included SSS of the MEPhI. The student scientific society of our university will receive a grant of 5 million rubles.

At the end of the event, the winners of the SSS Competition presented the development programs of the Student Scientific Societies of their universities.