Global Universities Association held a discussion platform on attracting foreign youth to Russian science

The event was moderated by Irina Karelina, Executive Director of the Global Universities Association. She noted how important intercultural interaction is in the academic environment. "Talent shines if its abilities are brought to the level of excellence, and excellence arises only when you get into the environment of amazing academic communication. And this communication not only allows one to grow, but also to find research partners," Irina Karelina emphasized.

Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Konstantin Mogilevsky told about the ways of attracting foreigners to Russian science, one of which is "cultivating" scientists from students. Last year 351 thousand young people from other countries entered Russian universities. 

As Andrey Keller, acting director of the Sociocenter, noted, the number of foreign graduate students has doubled compared to 2017. The leading countries here are China, Kazakhstan, Syria. As for the share of foreign students in comparison with other countries, here Russia is in the third ten, at the level of Israel, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland and Mexico.

According to Dmitry Arsenyev, vice-rector of St. Petersburg Peter the Great Polytechnic University, about one third of admissions to postgraduate studies in the university is realized through the Open Doors Olympiad. MEPhI First Vice-Rector Oleg Nagornov noted that the Olympiad plays an important role in attracting master's and postgraduate students to the university and came up with the idea of creating a single track of master's and postgraduate programs for motivated young researchers.

For reference: Intellectual competition Graduate Scholarship Project Open Doors annually attract about 80 thousand young people from 192 countries of the world, almost one third of them plan to participate in research projects in Russian universities at postgraduate level. The international youth audience shows the greatest interest in the subjects of Business & Management, Engineering & Technology, Computer & Data sciences, Biology & Biotechnology, Clinical medicine & Public health. The highest demand is for the following subjects: Financial management, Entrepreneurship, Artificial intelligence, Computer science and Information systems, Biochemistry and Molecular biology, Civil engineering and Construction, Electrical engineering and Electronics, General engineering.

The meeting included a survey of the audience on the most appealing measures to support young scientists, during which the most support was given to state housing certificates, RNF grants and grants of the Presidential Program for Young Scientists. The discussion was attended by more than a hundred listeners, including foreign young researchers.

The recording of the discussion is available at the following link (in Russian language): https://конгресс.наука.рф/program/