AltSU presented its achievements under the development program "Priority 2030"
The day before, Stepan Kalmykov, a member of the Commission of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation for the selection of Russian educational institutions of higher education in order to participate in the program of strategic academic leadership "Priority 2030", visited Altai State University. He visited the key sites of the university, and a presentation of the development program was also held.
During the visit, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry of Moscow State University Stepan Kalmykov visited facilities related to the strategic projects of the university: the Russian-American Anticancer Center, the Biomedicine Research Institute, the Altai Center for Applied Biotechnology, the Space Monitoring Laboratory, the Prombiotech Research Center and the South Siberian Botanical Garden.
Rector Sergey Bocharov presented AltSU development program:
“The university has been on the path of transformation for 10 years. Prior to the Priority 2030 program, it took part in three development programs and has already established itself as the leading educational, scientific, and innovative center of Altai Krai. The university management team entered the project with a clear understanding of the need for further changes. The transformation must be complex, the changes must take place at high speeds, the university must have its own development trajectory, aimed at a unique experience and a unique model.”
The range of scientific interests of the university staff was predetermined by regional features: life sciences and medicine, history, archeology, humanities, mathematical modeling, etc. They were formalized in the form of four strategic projects: AgroEcoSystems, Agrobiotech, Health Saving and "The Great Altai". They act as the core of the development program, around which individual projects are developed.
The Program involves the development and implementation of innovative technologies in the regional business structures, the active development of digital competencies and the expansion of opportunities for the development and self-realization of young people.
The program was shaped by a pool of interdisciplinary projects across departments. Several competitions were held, during which more than 60 projects were supported.
“The focus in our work is to form project teams, the involvement of people with the necessary competencies, including industrial partners, attractive conditions for young scientific and pedagogical workers, as well as their subsequent development. To solve this problem, an HR department has been created, announcing start-up grants for young teaching staff completed under the Priority 2030 program, initiating an open competition involving personnel from external organizations; and the personnel reserve has been created and updated. An important task is the development and promotion of personnel, we have launched a talent management system with the support for internships for young promising academic staff in priority areas and with necessary competences in research organizations in the Russian Federation and abroad. To increase motivation, a program is being implemented to support young employees, which provides for the reduced teaching load, involvement in scientific activities and a system of bonuses,” Sergey Bocharov noted.
There are two sources of funding for the development program: support for the basic part of the Priority 2030 program in the amount of 100 million rubles and co-financing that the university allocates for the development of its educational and scientific projects. At the end of 2021, 31% of the funds were directed to the purchase of scientific equipment, 22% to wages, 14% to computer equipment, and 12% to software.
Sergey Bocharov spoke about the financial model of the organization:
“When forming a financial model for the future, the university proceeds from the principles of diversifying sources of development, increasing the share of its own funds. The most important direction is to increase the share of extrabudgetary funds related to the implementation of research projects. Thanks to the program and supported projects, we have already been able to increase the share of extra-budgetary income by 6% over the year, and by 2030 we plan to increase the total amount of our own income from both educational and scientific activities to 60%.”
The First Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Evgenia Zhdanova spoke about the results of the educational policy implementation. An innovative open educational ecosystem is being created at the university. Key changes are aimed at the implementation of large-scale educational projects, which are reflected in the key priorities and achievable effects by 2030. Within the framework of umbrella projects, institutional projects are formed and implemented which are connected to the strategic projects of the university.
The main emphasis was placed on individual educational trajectories (IET). The restructuring of the educational space, so that the student really becomes the author of his own educational path, is one of the key areas of development for the university. The university creates its own model, using the experience of leading universities that are successful in this direction. For its implementation, together with CUSTIS experts, a detailed audit of our model of the personification of education, its institutional and digital content and viability was carried out.
The University began to implement its own IET model for those enrolled in 2021 with the introduction of the "University Core" module, aimed at mastering the general content and forming the basis as a system of universal and general professional competencies. The variability of the core allows strengthening these competencies for various areas of training.
The university, within the framework of the IET, has taken a course towards the development of a system of network training according to three models: network inclusive education with universities of the Russian Federation, joint EPs with foreign universities in the countries of the Greater Altai and Central Asia, network interaction with industrial partners and members of consortiums. In total, more than 2,000 people study under such programs.
The educational component of the Greater Altai project deserves special attention, as part of which 120 online courses have been created in Russian and English. In 2022, on the Greater Altai digital platform, eight master's degree programs will recruit students, of which six are being implemented as double-degree interdisciplinary project-oriented ones with partner universities of the Greater Altai Consortium.
Evgenia Zhdanova also spoke about digital student assistants on the IET route and the digital educational space management system. The results of the research policy and the policy in the field of innovation and commercialization of developments were presented by Vice-Rector for Scientific and Innovative Development Alexander Dunets. He outlined the main goal of the transfer of innovative products and technologies that are of interest for commercialization and implementation in the interests of the technological development of Altai Krai, Russia and the Greater Altai regions on the basis of flagship projects established at the university, consortiums created and breakthrough scientific and technological projects, mainly in the areas of digital and "green" economy, and ecology.
Alexander Dunets noted that since the beginning of the implementation of the Priority 2030 program, the university has identified three projects for itself. The Innovation Accelerator aims to increase competencies in the field of R&D commercialization. The Territory of Science project is associated with the creation of new research teams and their support through the creation of intra-university grants and competitions. The project “My Choice is Science” aims to develop young scientific personnel, supporting young academic staff, and attracting talented youth.
The R&D Promotion Center was created to build partnerships, work on the selection of intellectual property objects, develop commercialization technologies and support start-ups.
The most important direction is the development of a scientific and technological ecosystem of flagship projects with the participation of project teams of consortiums. Last year, eight consortiums were created: "Agroecological monitoring for the sustainable development of rural areas", "Mathematical modeling of natural processes", "Biotechnologies and chemical technologies in pharmaceuticals", "Turkic world of the Greater Altai: unity and diversity in history and modernity", " Design of health resort and tourist areas”, “Scientific support of environmental safety of socio-ecological systems and sustainable development of the Greater Altai”, “Study and conservation of biodiversity and genetic resources of North and Central Asia”, “Modeling, organization, digitalization, assessment and monitoring of agricultural territories."
As part of these consortia, points of collection of new centers of excellence have been created with the involvement of the partners potential. The main centers and key divisions have been identified, which allows the formation of new centers based on the mechanism of intra-university grants, support for applied research, and the development of academic mobility. The basis is the requests of industrial partners, which the university focuses on.
Alexander Dunets outlined some of the results obtained in the framework of this work: tissue-engineered skin structures based on natural biopolymers and fibroblasts for regenerative medicine have been developed, a consortium based on bacteria of the genus Bacillus, antagonistically active against pathogens of cultivated plants, has been discovered, species new to the fauna of the Asian part of Russia have been discovered, etc.
In his report, Alexander Dunets also spoke about the development of the scientific and technological ecosystem of flagship projects, the promotion of products and technologies, the expansion of the pool of flagship projects in new scientific areas, the creation of the Agrobiotech science and technology park, support for young scientists and major scientific events under the Priority 2030 program.
Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation and Media Communications Maxim Gerasimyuk spoke about the results of the implementation of the digital transformation policy. He noted that the digital transformation of the university is an auxiliary process that allows to improve the quality of the main basic processes: educational, scientific, administrative, campus, etc.
Five key areas of digital transformation have been identified: the development of a digital educational and research platform of Altai State University, which unites all digital services of the university on the principle of "one stop shopping window", a digital platform for relationships with partners within the framework of consortiums and agreements, the development of infrastructure for working with Big DATA and artificial intelligence (AI), the development of the BI system and the creation of the Smart University system.
Maxim Gerasimyuk noted that infrastructure is the basis for the introduction of digital technologies. At the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, it was possible to triple the speed of Internet channels from 300 MB per second to 1 GB. The bandwidth of the backbone network has been increased to 10 Gbit/s, the development of seamless network technology patented by university staff has begun - the creation of Wi-Fi networks based on interconnected routers. 108 virtual servers have been created at the university; the computer network has been updated by 10%. The university has 2890 computers and 37 computer classes. Cloud services and an anti-virus protection system are being introduced at the university. The GLPI IT infrastructure internal monitoring system is in operation.
The university is implementing a client-oriented model that allows a student, teacher, university employee to get access to all the basic services and resources of the university.
Maxim Gerasimyuk spoke about the key infrastructure projects designed to seriously change the quality of the digital environment: “Modernization of server and telecommunications equipment, computer classes”, “Mediahub”, “Videowall”, “Computer Center”, and “Mesh-network technology”. Key service projects are identified: "BI-platform", "AIS GLPI", "UserGate firewall", "Online payment for university services".
The Vice-Rector dwelled separately on the Speech Technologies project as an example of interaction with a technology partner. The university worked out this pilot project of Rosatom during the pandemic, the robot-voice assistant processed calls received by the university, and is now working as part of an admissions campaign. The educational program and the course of the further vocational education "Speech Technologies" were launched.
To date, AltSU’s digital partners are Rosatom Corporation, Sitronics group, Eltex, 1C, Systematics, Yandex Cloud, Information Security Center, AIKT, and NTC Galeks.
The results of the activities of university scientists within the framework of four strategic projects: "AgroEcoSystems", "Agrobiotech", "Health Saving" and "The Greater Altai" were presented by their leaders.
“The main purpose of my visit, my participation in the Council for the Priority 2030 program, is not a formal financial audit or verification, but the study of the main questions that I will then have to answer in the Ministry. This is how the Priority 2030 program has changed the face of the university. It is necessary to understand how the university began to develop after becoming a participant in the program, in specific areas and indicators: attracting students, industrial partners, further vocational education programs, digitalization, etc.,” said Stepan Kalmykov.