SPbPU Welcomes Delegates for the Second Slavic Universities Summit

On September 26, the second summit of Slavic universities «Slavic Horizon-2024» took place at the Polytechnic University. The event was organized by the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.

The summit participants included delegations from four Slavic universities: Russian-Armenian, Belarusian-Russian, Kyrgyz-Russian and Russian-Tajik, as well as representatives of Russian universities involved in the project.

The plenary session was opened by Ludmila Pankova, Vice-Rector for Academic affairs of SPbPU: We called the event a discussion platform for a reason; we discuss all aspects of education — from teaching methods to interaction with employers and enterprises. Collaboration with the second summit of Slavic universities ‘Slavic Horizon-2024’ will allow us to expand the boundaries and transfer the best educational practices.

Yulia Ryzhikh, Dean of the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Tomsk State University, presented in her report a new image of the higher education system based on the TSU case study.

Today the system of higher education in the Russian Federation is undergoing significant changes. And it is very important to understand in what context we should build further cooperation to ensure the quality of the educational process, emphasized Yulia Ryzhikh.

Svetlana Barabantseva, Head of Young Talent Management at Severstal, and Zoya Makarovskaya, Chairman of the Union of Methodists of Higher Education, also spoke at the event.

Vice-Rector for International Affairs of SPbPU Dmitry Arseniev opened the topic of the global presence of Russian education in the world and presented in his report the approaches and tools implemented by Polytechnic University.

At the session «Spreading Russian presence in the global world» colleagues from Slavic universities spoke about their experience of educational cooperation with Russian universities.

We are meeting for the second year at St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, which is our strategic partner in the development of educational, scientific and educational processes. Having such a platform gives us an opportunity to communicate with the leadership of other Russian universities, with the administration and our supervisors from the Polytechnic University, to develop common points of view, to form platforms and in general a common view on the development of Slavic universities, said Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs of BRU Natalia Vologina.

Viktor Denisenko, Vice-Rector for International and Scientific-Innovative Activity of KRSU, noted the steps towards modernization in the educational process that were taken with the participation of Polytechnic University this year.

Maria Alimova, Director of the Center for Social and Cultural Adaptation and Intercultural Communication of the PFUR Institute of Russian Language, spoke about joint work in the field of support and promotion of the Russian language with Slavic universities, events and implemented programs.

Marina Khachatryan, RAU Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, shared the experience of implementing educational programs with Russian universities, including Polytechnic.

The international experience of educational cooperation was presented by the consortium «Russian-African Network University» represented by Alla Mazina, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Department of SPbPU and RAFU Secretary.

At the summit, SPbPU and KRSU signed an agreement on nine network educational programs in the following areas: info-communication technologies and communication systems, electronics and nanoelectronics, instrument engineering, electric power engineering, mechanics, architectural environment design, software engineering, construction, and technosphere safety.

The main thing in the Slavic Universities project is to support our partners in developing a development program based on Polytechnic’s experience, to focus on its acceleration so that they become leaders in their countries, models of quality education, said Dmitry Arseniev.

The business part of the day was concluded with a seminar for heads of development programs, where each university presented the current status of their implementation.

The Slavic Summit is a unique format that was created a year ago and has proved to be very effective. ‘Slavic Universities’, each in its own country, with its own specifics, are united by a common task set by the relevant ministries and country leaders. In solving these tasks, they face similar problems. The summit provides an opportunity for open discussion, which helps to find solutions to common challenges, share unique specifics and national characteristics, understand what mechanisms can work, and how to apply experience and ideas in different countries. We plan to continue this format of interaction, as it allows synchronization and gives a powerful impetus for development for the next year, summed up Nikita Golovin, Head of the Project Office of Slavic Universities, Deputy Head of International Cooperation Department.