On the 29th August 2014 the annual meeting of the MEPhI faculty was held in the Creative center “Moskvorechie”, dedicated to the beginning of the academic year.
Traditionally at the beginning of the meeting participants paid tribute to the staff of the University, who passed away last year. Most of them were graduates of the Institute and worked there for many years.
Then the meeting continued with presentations of honorary guests.
Deputy Head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Military-Scientific Committee of the Armed Forces, major general S.S. Suvorov stressed the great importance of the MEPhI participation in projects that are implemented for students by the Russian Defense Ministry, emphasizing the combination of principles of synthesis of education and science in the University. He also drew attention to the fact that proportion of MEPhI students exceeds 30% in formed scientific companies.
Among the honorary guests of the meeting there was a Deputy Director of “Rosfinmonitoring” V.I. Glotov, who briefly spoke about the creation of the Federal financial monitoring service and the opening of the Institute of financial and economic security in the MEPhI in 2006. He noted that the graduates of this Institute constitute about 1/3 of the entire Federal service.
Director of educational programs of the Department of personnel management of the State Corporation “Rosatom” V.V. Karezin noted the high level of preparation of graduates in MEPhI, who come to work in the nuclear industry. He assured that the State Corporation will do everything to maintain MEPhI in personnel training and those scientific studies that are underway at the University.
Also the meeting was attended by the Deputy Director General for strategic development and implementation of state programs of JSC “Russian electronics” A.V.Brykin, who spoke about the areas of cooperation between Roselectronic and MEPhI, industry personnel problems and prospects for the development of electronics in Russia.
Appearances of the guests of honor led the meeting to its main section – annual report of the principal. Before talking about the main achieved results and the challenges which MEPhI will face in the near future, M.N.Strikhanov emphasized the most important and honorable event of the year – the visit of the Russian President to the University.
Also there were other significant events in the last academic year, which exerted a great influence on the activity of the Higher school and determined direction of development of the leading universities. It was the meeting of the Presidium of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation on the implementation of priority national projects and demographic policy on the 20th May 20, 2014, which had stressed the importance of establishing contacts with other universities, mobility of students and teachers within the country, implementation of network and e-learning methods, purposeful enrollment, creating the conditions for teaching students with disabilities.
The meeting of the Presidential Council for science and education, which took place on June 23, 2014, was a big event as well, which was attended by the General Director of the State Corporation for atomic energy “Rosatom” Sergey Kiriyenko, who marked a special contribution of MEPhI in the training of engineers. According to the head of Rosatom, the maintenance of the University branch system in the points of presence of the State Corporation is of great importance for staff training for industrial enterprises. The uniqueness of this system consists in the possibility of obtaining theoretical knowledge in the chief institute, and practical – directly in the branches and in industrial plants of Closed Administrative-Territorial Units.
The principal’s report included some ratings, demonstrating that MEPhI takes pride of place. There are two national ratings, which now become generally recognized: the national rating of “Interfax” Agency & “Echo of Moscow” and the Russian rating of the Rating Agency “Expert RA”. In the first one MEPhI has been taking the third place for two years on end. According to another rating MEPhI took the fourth place this year, ceding to MSU, MIPT and Bauman Moscow State Technical University. These two ratings show the stability of the positioning of MEPhI.
As to international ratings, for the first time in the history MEPhI entered one of the three leading world rankings – Times Higher Education. In 2012 the University was in the world's TOP-250 (only with MSU). In 2013 MEPhI was not involved in the world TOP rating, but was the 74th in the subject niche “Natural Sciences”, leaving behind a huge number of world universities. In 2013 MEPhI entered the top-300 in the section “Physics and astronomy” and in regional rating BRICS it took the 65th place.
Great place of the report was devoted to the results of the admission campaign. This year the National Research Nuclear University “MEPhI” enrolled exactly as many students as needed in accordance with the admission quotas.
Further M.N.Strikhanov spoke about the collaborative work of MEPhI and “Rosatom” in the sphere of professional certification and accreditation, in particular, about the main stages of creation of a certification system of qualifications in the nuclear industry.
Great attention in the report was given to the Program of global competitiveness increase of the University and related to it changes that lie ahead, including involvement of famous Russian and foreign scientists in the University.
