Contents
Real science today does not live in the dark laboratories of scientific research institutes – now universities are responsible for research, and it is in their interests to promote their achievements, track both regional and global requests
The material uses cases and opinions voiced within the framework of the round table of the educational platform “Urait” “Science to win: where science leads the university” with the participation of vice-rectors of Russian universities.
According to one of the main international rankings, The World University Rankings, only 16 Russian universities today have weight in the international scientific context (they entered the top 1000). What you need to change this is in the Trends material.
1. Openness
Science should be transparent, research should be open to all levels of the interested community, regardless of academic degree. This is necessary for the free exchange of developments between different scientific schools and countries. Open resources, sources, and scientific journals encourage peer-reviewed articles and provide a foundation for new research. In order to “revive” science and avoid stagnation, a constant discussion and exchange of opinions is needed – it is impossible to imagine such a picture without the availability and openness of scientific resources.
Another task is to promote the mobility of scientists, which today is unidirectional. Often we have a scheme “I studied at the bachelor’s, master’s, postgraduate studies and went to work in the university laboratory”. But in order to establish links and dialogue between scientific schools, to attract foreign personnel, such a way out of the comfort zone is mandatory. In the case of productive and constant interaction with the outside world, the exchange of employees, scientific research will receive the right “recharging”.
2. Ethical
Now the country has a low legal culture – it is believed that there is nothing reprehensible in, for example, downloading a movie from a torrent or installing illegal software on a computer. Approximately the same situation with different formats of scientific papers. For example, according to the observations of the editor-in-chief of Yurait for content, Alexander Safonov, about 70% of all publications received by the electronic publishing house are plagiarism.
“From a student’s bench, it is assumed that plagiarism is normal, and then it is difficult to explain to a young scientist that one should act differently in science,” says Andrey Shcherbenok, founding director of the School of Advanced Studies (SAS) of Tyumen State University, PhD, University of California at Berkeley.
The education of academic ethics and the rejection of plagiarism, falsification, the so-called literary slavery is what today we need to start preparing future specialists in any field, especially scientists. In the world scientific community and at the legislative level, plagiarism is actually equated with intellectual theft, but in Russian universities there are still cases of buying articles and other scientific works, publications in journals to increase publication activity.
3. Modern technologies
In order for scientific activity to be meaningful and adequate, it is necessary to implement it through the latest technologies. And it’s not so much about updating the material and technical base, but about establishing interaction between students and teachers, links between science and education. This is the task of methodologists, organizers of the educational process. Teachers should also be trained in relevant academic skills, such as academic writing and digital literacy.
At the moment, a few domestic scientists are quoted at the international level, and most of our research is no longer relevant. According to the Science and Engineering Indicators 2019 ranking of the countries of the world in terms of research activity, our country ranks 7th, but we have practically no “green” research, as well as innovative technology start-ups, which the global scientific community is oriented to today.
Establishing networking between universities and the collective use of sophisticated equipment that would significantly reduce the costs of universities is another challenge. The Ministry of Education and Science has been talking about this lately, aiming the Strategic Academic Leadership Program specifically at the formation of new ties and cooperation between universities and other educational organizations. Why “reinvent the wheel” when you can ask colleagues? For example, in MSTU im. Bauman, a radio telescope is used, on which students and scientists not only from Bauman, but also from other educational institutions, perform laboratory work. Remote access was introduced to its equipment, which was actively used in the spring at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
4. Orientation to a regional request
The development of narrow niches and partnership with business is the secret of being in demand among applicants of some provincial universities.
Very few educational institutions can afford “classical” multidisciplinary training – this industry is already “crammed”. It’s time for regional universities to look for their own unique areas of training, catch the request of regional enterprises and engage in research, for the sake of participation in which applicants will be ready to come to study from capital cities.
This is the path of greatest resistance, but perhaps the only chance to compete with the “classic” giants. Partnership with business and work for the development of the region is also the key to successful employment of graduates.
An example is the East Siberian State University of Technology and Management:
“At our university, the only certified laboratory for testing aviation equipment in our country is a feature that students and graduate students come to us for,” says Igor Sizov, vice rector of the university for research and innovation.
5. Electronic environment
The development of an electronic university environment is a priority task for educational organizations. EdTech today offers ample opportunities for distance learning and, as practice shows, those universities that have long begun to introduce digital technologies were able to better adapt to remote learning during the pandemic. And those who started this in March had to make up for lost time in the context of coronavirus time pressure amid dissatisfaction with teachers, students and their parents.
Thus, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed its own MOOC (massive open online course) MITx with ready-made free online courses from its teachers in a variety of subjects, available worldwide, as well as an open open resource with educational materials 2,4 thousand . training programs. Thanks to these platforms, students have been able to seamlessly switch to distance learning, and teachers have been able to learn new formats and ideas for online learning, and not only at MIT itself. Similar platforms are now appearing in our country too – for example, Open Education, although they are not yet so large-scale.
The absence of an electronic environment or its insufficient level today actually leads to the profanation of science and student practice. But even if many studies are difficult to implement remotely, this does not mean that they should be suspended during the pandemic. There are options that have proven their effectiveness over the past six months, in particular, this is remote research using special equipment, as in the already mentioned Baumanka.
In the future, when all these challenges become a means, domestic universities will be able to take high positions in the world rankings in terms of the educational and scientific component, and the prestige of science among young people will increase.
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