SPbPU Enhances Collaboration with Tsinghua University

Polytechnic University was visited by a delegation from the world’s leading Chinese university, Tsinghua University, a strategic partner of SPbPU. The history of cooperation between the two universities dates back to the 1950s, when the first specialists from China came to study in Leningrad. The partnership agreement between LPI and Tsinghua University, signed in 1987, was one of the first full-scale agreements between the schools of higher education of the USSR and China. The universities became leading in their respective countries and the close ties between the scientific groups and the constant support of the management in the realization of many joint scientific and educational projects played an important role in this.

The group of master’s degree and PhD students visiting SPbPU represents a wide range of study areas at Tsinghua University — aerospace studies, IT, a number of engineering areas, earth and life sciences, biomedicine, sociology and management. The delegation was led by Prof. Wang Chuanli of the School of Marxism and Prof. Wang Renmo, Vice Dean of the National Higher College of Engineering.

One of the most important components of cooperation between our universities has been and continues to be academic mobility. The practice of study visits by Tsinghua University students has evolved over the years and resumed with renewed vigor after the pandemic. Visiting key laboratories of SPbPU and getting acquainted with the University’s campus are part of the training programs for the best students of the Chinese university.

During the visit, the students got acquainted with SPbPU’s achievements in the field of information technologies and research projects realized with the help of Politech’s supercomputer. In the Industrial Systems of Streaming Data Processing laboratory of SPbPU NSPP the guests were presented two training and demonstration systems based on VR-technologies: VR-laboratory for training in working with gas compressor units of compressor stations and virtual stands for laboratory works in the discipline «Life Safety». The interactive VR-applications were created as part of the program to improve the quality of education and training implemented by SPbPU in cooperation with PAO Gazprom.

Maria Vrublevskaya, Acting Vice-Rector for Advanced Projects, welcomed the delegation, emphasizing the main mission of SPbPU: The main strategic goal of our university is to close the personnel deficit of research engineers both in our country and in the states friendly to Russia. Our scale and range of training areas are so large that Polytechnic University covers 6.5% of this deficit in the country. In this respect our universities are similar, as Tsinghua University also acts as a leader in the training and formation of the country’s engineering elite.

Maria Vrublevskaya told the delegation from China about the promising areas of development of our university and the potential that can be used in the future to expand areas of cooperation. First of all, it is about training high-level engineers to solve breakthrough problems of industry and national development. Prof. Wang Zhenmo in his presentation presented a new approach of Tsinghua University to work with talented young people and told about the newly created structure — National Higher College of Engineers.

It is gratifying that our cooperation is developing simultaneously in academic mobility and in many educational areas, such as Summer Schools, as well as in science. There are examples of successful joint research projects in electronics, aerospace, energy, technosphere safety. We should also mention very important humanitarian areas, for example, the project ‘Oriental Studies in Russia’, which involves our two universities, as well as institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Any partnership initiatives are always supported by both universities, said Ekaterina Belyaevskaya, head of the International Academic Cooperation Department.

Wang Chuanli thanked for the warm welcome: Polytechnic University and Tsinghua University have a long and fruitful history of cooperation. Our great scientists were graduates of your university, for example, Academician Ni Weidou. And it is the joint interaction, scientific projects, and academic mobility that makes our universities among the leading ones in their respective countries, not the other way around. In the 50s of the last century, many Russian specialists worked in China and, in particular, in Tsinghua. And we would like to continue this tradition.

Wang Chuanli hopes to expand and develop promising and long-term cooperation in new educational and research projects. He congratulated the polytechnics on the coming Chinese New Year. The universities will strengthen student exchanges, cultural and humanitarian cooperation between our universities. The colleagues emphasized the importance of academic exchanges and agreed to continue such study visits.