The Kaluga Region intends to establish the Obninsk Tech International Scientific and Educational Center for Nuclear and Related Technologies. Below we present the text of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta material.
Vladislav Shapsha, Governor of the Kaluga Region, presents the Obninsktech project to Vladimir Putin.
Photo: Kaluga Region Government
Recently, an application was signed for participation in a competition within the framework of the federal project "Creation of a network of modern campuses" of the national project "Youth and Children". The world-class campus in Obninsk is designed to ensure the country's technological superiority in the nuclear field by training thousands of specialized specialists and occupy at least 20 percent of the global nuclear education market, including nuclear energy and medicine.
The concept of the project was previously approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The creation of Obninsk Tech was supported by the Kurchatov Institute and leading universities that are members of the consortium of Rosatom's flagship universities, as well as the management and enterprises of the Kaluga Region.
Alexey Likhachev, CEO of Rosatom State Corporation, noted that the nuclear industry is one of Russia's leading competitive advantages. According to him, the country will have to create a fourth generation of nuclear energy within 20 years, and this will require specialists. "We have several goals at once, which we will solve with MEPhI and the leadership of the Kaluga region.
The most important of them is the training of specialists for the implementation of the general layout of electric power facilities until 2042. We have to build 38 nuclear power units at 18 sites. We have estimated that we will need at least 35,000 specialists to implement the general scheme. 20 percent of them will be trained at Obninsk Tech," Alexey Likhachev said.
The state corporation also offers assistance in training personnel for foreign projects. In 2011, a consortium of Rosatom's flagship universities was established. The number of international students in them, according to the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (NRU MEPhI), exceeds 2,200 people, they represent 65 countries of the world (Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh, where new nuclear power plants are currently being built, and other countries). Obninsk Tech is designed to increase this figure.
The construction of the campus is planned on the basis of the Obninsk Institute of Atomic Energy, a branch of MEPhI. At the same time, according to the university's portal, other core universities of Rosatom will participate in the work of the future scientific and educational center.
It is planned that foreign students will start their education in Obninsk, and then they will be able to move to study at another university. According to MEPhI, Obninsk Tech is creating "an educational platform that unites the country's universities and nuclear industry enterprises into a single professional training system."
Last August, Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha presented a mock-up of the future campus to Vladimir Putin in Sarov. More than 30 objects can be seen on the layout: in addition to the educational component, there is a hotel, an exhibition space, a nuclear representative office of the participating countries, a museum of peaceful atom, a research center for nuclear medicine and much more. In fact, the campus is being created as a multifunctional environment combining education, science, technological entrepreneurship and urban infrastructure.
MEPhI Rector Vladimir Shevchenko stressed that this is a flagship project for the university: "This is something more than just a project to develop the Obninsk site of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI. It is being conceived by us and will be implemented as a national-scale project, which will involve many leading universities, primarily members of the Rosatom consortium of flagship universities. The best programs and teachers of these universities, the best practices of working with international students will be implemented at Obninsk Tech and will strengthen our country's nuclear leadership through leadership in education."
The head of Rosatom also noted the second task facing Obninsk Tech, which is to promote the development of the Kaluga Region. According to him, the project has already become the core of the Obninsk master plan, and the region will receive hundreds of well-trained specialists in the coming years. "This will solve the problem of accelerated socio-economic development of the region," said Alexey Likhachev.
