At SSU, there was held the strategic session entitled Integration of federal and state educational standards and industry competencies following the requirements of the company technology policy. The participants in the discussion were the staff of Saratov State University and representatives of its partners – Gazprom Neft and Norilsk Nickel Sputnik, as well as the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
The colleagues discussed the vision of the university and the companies of joint curricula, talked about the practical aspects of implementing educational cases with universities and industrial partners, and outlined successful and debatable aspects of cooperation.
Denis Terin, the moderator of the session, Associate Professor of the Department of Materials Science, Technology, and Quality Management, noted that due of the Priority 2030 programme SSU has been effectively working with industrial partners. ‘SSU always tries to find common ground and speak the same language with companies. This fine-tuning is the motto of our work and today's strategic session,’ he said.
Elena Yelina, Head of Priority Projects and Programmes, and Kapitalina Zakharinskaya, Regional Director of Nornickel Sputnik LLC in Saratov, commented on the successful long-term cooperation between SSU and Nornickel Sputnik.
‘Our main task is not only to discuss the collaboration experience of the university and its partners, but also to find the possibility of new curricula that meet the interests of the companies. It is important to understand how to develop a curriculum that will be interesting to students and provide future specialists with in-demand knowledge and competencies, so that it will suit both the university, the main purpose of which is personnel training, and the requesting company,’ Elena Yelina pointed out.
Saratov State University, together with Norilsk Nickel Sputnik, has been implementing a professional re-training course since 2019. It was ordered by the company and developed by the teaching staff of the Faculty of Computer Sciences and Information Technologies and the Faculty of Economics. Every year, it transforms itself by responding to the company's requests. Over the years of partnership between SSU and Norilsk Nickel Sputnik, they have found the optimal model of educational cooperation.
Kapitalina Zakharinskaya paid attention to the career development of interns. The graduates of the first and second cohorts are already working as mentors for current students. Students of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technologies, the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Chemistry, the Faculty of Economics, and the Faculty of Sociology are invited to study. Over the four years of the programme's implementation, more than 300 graduates have completed internships and more than 120 students have been employed by the company.
Associate Professor of the Department of Innovation Elena Revzina spoke about Saratov State University as a multifunctional educational environment and presented projects interesting for the university and the Gazprom Neft LLC. She noted that the university provides practice-oriented training of students in basic curricula and advanced training in professions and specialties of higher education considering the needs the market. In addition, SSU students can get additional qualifications in oil and gas professions at Geology College.
Irina Goryacheva, Director of the Institute of Chemistry, and Raisa Kuzmina, Chair of the Department of Petrochemistry and Technogenic Safety, shared their experience of cooperation with the industrial partners.
Raisa Kuzmina said that the first enrolment in the two-year course for drilling mud engineers for the company "M-I SWACO" took place in 2008. Pavel Lukyanov, a graduate of this course, now holds a senior position at Gazprom Neft.
‘The Institute of Chemistry is very dynamic and works with companies even in the most difficult conditions in the human resources market. We are ready to focus on the future employers of our graduates, we are ready to respond to the tasks of an industrial partner. The Institute of Chemistry develops course which meet the needs of a particular company as part of corporate training. We have experience in creating joint programmes with such companies such Rosneft, Lukoil, and Saratovorgsintez. For the second year, the Institute of Chemistry has been implementing a training course for specialists in extracting metals from reservoir waters for Irkutsk Oil Company’ Raisa Kuzmina commented.
During the advanced development of technology, there is a critical shortage of chemical and technological personnel, therefore, a high level of education becomes an important factor in preparing these specialists for the market. Raisa Kuzmina marked that the university is not only a source of personnel, but also a platform that needs to be developed jointly with industrial partners.
Today, more than half of the students of the Institute of Chemistry receive a diploma of professional re-training and become employees of partner enterprises. ‘Who is interested in such courses? Firstly, the students who receive additional qualifications. We give them the knowledge they will need tomorrow. We control how these skills help graduates' career development. Secondly, the companies. They receive qualified specialists and form human resources potential,’ Raisa Kuzmina explained.
Pavel Sorokin, Head of the Cooperation Programme with Universities of Gazprom Neft LLC, recalled that SSU has been part of the Gazprom Neft research and educational ecosystem since 2021 and acts as a multidisciplinary partner of the company. The cooperation with universities ads part of the ecosystem is based on the principle of a “closed club” and implies a long-term partnership based on ten-year framework agreements.
Pavel Sorokin paid special attention to master's degree courses. The goals of Gazprom Neft's programmes are to meet the company's personnel needs and develop an innovation cluster. He shared a set of competencies that create a target image of a graduate from the point of view of Gazprom Neft, and spoke about the options to develop these skills during studies, as well as gave examples of successful cooperation with Russian universities.
Artyom Balyakin, the head of the analytical group of the Committee on Scientific, Educational, and Innovation Policy of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, an SSU graduate, spoke about the cooperation between business and higher education.
According to him, the main challenge is to restore the competitive level of mastery of critical technologies in basic industries in a short time and to form a reserve in high-tech industries. An effective partnership between universities and companies can help in solving this problem.
At the end of the plenary session, the participants continued the discussion at breakout sessions and discussed two topics – the target image of a graduate with added competencies and prototyping an educational model of the programme. The results of the strategic session were presented at the final meeting on March 21.
The Gazprom Neft – SSU Research-to-Education Centre has been part of the innovative structure of Saratov State University since 2023. Last January, SSU became a member of the Gazprom Neft League of Universities. It should be noted that, in recent years, Saratov State University has strengthened cooperation with regional and federal industrial partners. This trend is explained by the university's participation in the Priority 2030 programme, one of the main tasks of which is to bring research to specific technologies and products in demand on the market.
