220th anniversary briefing held at the Government House of Tatarstan
The KFU leadership gathered for the event on 19 November.
The team comprised Rector Lenar Safin, First Vice Rector Dmitry Tayursky, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Yekaterina Turilova, Vice-Rector for Economic and Strategic Development Marat Safiullin, Vice-Rector for International Affairs Timirkhan Alishev, and Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation and Innovation Dmitry Pashin.
Dmitry Tayursky emphasized that many areas of science originated at Kazan University, “These include astronomy, Eastern studies, linguistics, and non-Euclidean geometry. Everyone, of course, knows that Kazan University is the world’s birthplace of organic chemistry. If we take the establishment of Kazan Federal University (2010-2011) as a starting point, the scientific infrastructure has increased many times over. If in 2011 the cost of all the equipment, all the associated facilities was 116 million rubles, today it is more than 5 billion rubles. This is the scientific base, the scientific infrastructure where university scientists, regardless of their age, conduct their research. Kazan University is one of the leaders in the Russian Federation in the number of applications and won Russian Science Foundation grants. In 2018, Kazan University received the right among the few universities in Russia to award scientific degrees independently. Today we have 48 dissertation councils which cover more than 100 scientific specialties. Every year we award more than 200 PhD degrees and about 35-40 DSc degrees. Our PhD coverage has also increased significantly. Today KFU has more than 1.5 thousand PhD students.”
Yekaterina Turilova reminded that KFU admitted 7,499 students this year. The majority of budget-funded places were allocated to Pedagogical Education, Mechanical Engineering, Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Mechanics, and IT.
“The educational system of the university involves children from pre-school age and all generations, including senior age students. Our system is developing very dynamically, responding to modern challenges. Every year new specializations appear,” Dr Turilova noted.
She also added that now the Student IT Park is beginning to develop, where students together with representatives of companies will work on projects that will be of interest to business representatives and solve internal problems of the university.
Marat Safiullin outlined the priority areas of development of Kazan Federal University. He spoke about the University’s positions in international and national rankings, as well as the university’s competitive advantages: international integration, reputation, scientometric indicators, and social environment.
Timirkhan Alishev presented information related to the development of international strategic partnerships and networking. He emphasized that Kazan University was directly involved in large-scale events held in the capital of Tatarstan, such as the BRICS Summit, the ROSTKI Russia-China Forum, and the upcoming Organization of Islamic Cooperation Youth Scientific Forum.
During his speech, the Vice-Rector for International Affairs mentioned the establishment of two foreign branches – in Jizzakh (Republic of Uzbekistan) and Cairo (Arab Republic of Egypt).
Kazan University forms a favorable multicultural and multilingual environment. Currently there are 12 thousand international students here.
Dmitry Pashin, Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation and Innovation, told that Kazan Federal University together with Izvarino Pharma is launching a project unique for Russia, aimed at creating a full cycle of production of active pharmaceutical substances. This is a significant contribution to the country’s drug independence. He also spoke in detail about the University Technological Entrepreneurship Platform, aimed at mass involvement of students in technological entrepreneurship and creation of technological companies within the university walls.