South Ural Interuniversity Campus Team Awarded for Successful Defence of its Product Programs

This high praise is a result of a big-scale work on forming a portfolio of 83 products aimed at the scientific and technological development of our region. This event has confirmed the status of the South Ural region as one of the leaders of the pilot project by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.

The awards ceremony followed announcing the results of the defence of product models developed under a joint project with the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia. The event was organized as a video conference chaired by Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Andrey Omelchuk. During the ceremony the results of the pilot project on developing the campuses’ products programs were summarized. The Chelyabinsk Region became one of the five pilot participants, along with the Novosibirsk Region, Sakhalin Region, Tyumen Region, and the Perm Territory.

Among the event’s participants were First Deputy Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Stanoslav Mosharov, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of our region Olga Statirova, heads of the campus’s thematic specializations and product programs, and representatives of the resident universities and the project office.

The team was awarded a special prize for active participation and high results of working in the “Development of Campus Products Programs” pilot project under the “Creating a Network of Modern Campuses” federal project.

Stanoslav Mosharov noted in his speech:

“Our award is the recognition of not only the content of the programs, but also of the established system of interaction between science, regional government and industry, including thanks to the principled position and personal support of the Governor Alexey Texler. He sees science as one of the key drivers of our region’s development. We have proven that we can work as one team. An important stage of the implementation is ahead. We will do our best so that the practices of the South Ural region could become an example for all the campuses in our country.”

The product portfolio of the Chelyabinsk campus includes 8 programs combining 83 solutions: from science-intensive technologies to educational services. The key tracks are related to our region’s priorities, such as intelligent manufacturing, materials science and materials physics, ecology and living systems. The awarding of this prize became a recognition of not only the quality of elaboration of the financial and economic models and mechanisms of putting the products into market, but also of the efficiency of the team work of universities, regional government and business.

70 percent of the campus portfolio products had been developed by our university’s scientists and engineers in 7 interdisciplinary technological tracks: “Transport and Logistics Systems” (headed by S.M. Taran), “Industrial Robots” (headed by M.A. Grigoriev), “Digital Maturity of Industry in the Chelyabinsk Region” (headed by A.V. Gollai), “Technology Entrepreneurship and Management of High-technology Business” (headed by I.A. Solovieva), “Ecobiotech” (chief designer is I.Iu. Potoroko), “Materials Science and Materials Physics”, and “Youth on Campus”.

“Construction of this campus is a huge step forward towards the development of education and science in the Chelyabinsk Region, and an important part in the implementation of the “Youth and Children” national project. We are creating an up-to-date environment for studying and research, that would allow to keep our talented young people in our region. Considerable areas will be allotted for joint laboratories of SUSU and our industrial partners, such as URAL plant, Chelyabinsk Forge-and-Press Plant, KONAR company, and METRAN company. Here, students, scientists, and engineers will be working on breakthrough projects in mechanical engineering, metallurgy, robotics, and other key fields,” noted SUSU Rector Alexander Wagner.

SUSU’s zone of responsibility in this project could be called one of the intellectual centres of the future campus. The campus resident university performs the functions of a regional project office and coordinates the interaction of all the participants: from partner universities to major industrial enterprises.

This was not for the first time that the campus team received high praise from experts. In 2023, during the 3rd Young Scientists Congress at Sirius, the Chelyabinsk Region campus had already been marked with a special prize for high project management quality. Today, this experience helps integrate industrial partners into the programs’ implementation.

The experience of this pilot project will be upscaled to all 40 university centres that will appear in our country as part of the “Youth and Children” national project by 2036.

The construction of the Interuniversity Campus in Chelyabinsk is part of the federal initiative to establish a network of modern campuses, being implemented under the “Youth and Children” national project, and remains under the direct supervision of the Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Alexey Texler.