Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a working visit to Sarov, home to the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics and the Sarov Institute of Physics and Technology, a branch of MEPhI. The rector of MEPhI, Vladimir Shevchenko, told the head of state about one of the flagship educational projects in which the nuclear university participates — Ural Atom.

The President visited an exhibition on scientific and educational infrastructure in the cities where Rosatom's key enterprises are located: Lesnoye (Sverdlovsk Region), Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk Region), Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk Territory), Obninsk (Kaluga Region), and Sarov.

Commenting on the models of scientific and educational infrastructure, Alexey Likhachev, CEO of Rosatom State Corporation, stressed: "I would like to create a program to support educational infrastructure in cities of technological development, in cities that are extremely important for our technological sovereignty tomorrow, so that the guys not only do not leave, but strive to get there."

In turn, Vladimir Shevchenko drew the President's attention to the fact that MEPhI is a key participant in four of the five submitted projects (Sarov, Snezhinsk, Obninsk, Lesnoy).

For example, the rector of MEPhI noted that the Technological Institute, a branch of MEPHI in Lesnoye and the leader of the ranking of universities in the Sverdlovsk region, will become the base of the Ural Atom project, one of the future centers of engineering education in Russia. Investments in the amount of more than 2 billion rubles are planned for this, which by 2030 will be translated into a modernized educational laboratory base, a complex of special educational spaces with workshops and laboratories, a stadium and various auxiliary facilities. To date, MEPhI has already opened a Pre-university in 2023 under the Ural Atom program, which has 160 students in grades 8-10.

"The key idea of Ural Atom is an end—to-end trajectory that starts from high school for engineering-motivated young people, and continues beyond, after completing the appropriate levels of education, to employment at enterprises of both Rosatom and the military-industrial complex of the entire Northern Urals," explained Vladimir Shevchenko.

In addition, the rector of MEPhI noted that a hub for nuclear and related education, Obninsk Tech, is being created in Obninsk on the site of the university branch. It will offer some of the best educational programs in the world, confirming the technological leadership of Rosatom and Russia. Alexey Likhachev gave a general summary of the exhibition: "These are different projects, but they are all about the same thing: to integrate not even education, but the lifestyle of young people as much as possible into the social infrastructure of cities and the production agenda. To do this, there must be a metropolitan education and appropriate infrastructure."

Very soon we will introduce our readers to the details of projects in other cities of technological sovereignty of Russia — the sites of the regional institutes of MEPhI.

At the end of the visit, Vladimir Putin outlined a strategic vector for the nuclear industry: "We must set ourselves great goals and strive to make a qualitative step in the development of the domestic economy and the entire civilization."

Our university and the entire nuclear industry are eagerly awaiting the President's instructions following the meeting in Sarov.

MEPhI — at the Moscow site and in the nuclear cities of Sarov, Snezhinsk, Obninsk and others — has been training new generations of nuclear scientists, researchers, engineers, and highly skilled workers, including future guardians of our nuclear shield, for many decades.