New Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Mobility panel session organized at KazanForum 2024 by KFU and COMSTECH
The session was moderated by Timirkhan Alishev, Vice-Rector for International Affairs of KFU.
KFU’s First Vice-Rector Dmitry Tayursky spoke about Lobachevsky Project, a new global academic mobility initiative at KFU.
“The interaction between Russia and the countries of the Islamic world in education, science and culture is finding new points of support. In our days, as we see, it has special relevance. The main forms and areas of cooperation are reflected in the memorandum of understanding signed in 2022 between the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. These include, of course, scientific and academic mobility programs between our countries,” he said.
Of KFU’s current 12,000 international students, more then 80% represent OIC countries. Over half of the University’s overseas employees are from Islamic countries as well.
“Within the framework of various joint projects and cooperation agreements with partner universities (and we have more than 180 of them from 21 OIC countries) academic mobility is successfully implemented. In 2023, outgoing to OIC countries and incoming mobility to KFU from OIC countries amounted to 348 and 281 people respectively. This is almost 80 percent of all international mobility of our university. The most active interaction is with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia, and other OIC countries. Colleagues from Indonesia, Oman, Qatar, and Libya also come to visit. Our professors give lectures on a regular basis at KFU branches in Uzbekistan and Egypt. Our scientists conduct astronomical observations and research at the TÜBİTAK National Observatory in Turkey. We actively use the opportunity to organize research internships of our employees to the universities of the OIC countries with the support of Tatarstan’s provincial governmental scholarship program Algarysh. Last year, within the framework of this program, 17 KFU employees underwent internships in the universities of Iran, Bahrain, Turkey, and Kazakhstan, including financial accounting and audit, smart city, Iranian studies and so on,” informed Dr Tayursky.
In 2022, following the results of a meeting at KazanSummit (the then title of KazanForum), Kazan Federal University became a member of the Consortium of Excellence of the Standing Committee for Scientific and Technical Cooperation – COMSTECH. With COMSTECH’s support, two international youth scientific congresses of OIC countries were held at KFU in 2022 and 2023. They were attended by more than 100 young researchers.
“Within the framework of COMSTECH academic mobility programs support, KFU hosts and sends its young scientists for internships in universities – members of the consortium. For example, last year a researcher from the University of Karachi came to our Institute of Chemistry for an internship in functional nanomaterials. The colleagues had a very productive interaction, and further projects have been outlined. We plan to sign a memorandum with the University of Karachi. This year one COMSTECH scholarship holder intends to intern at the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology,” added the speaker.
KFU’s new initiative within its Priority 2030 program participation this year is the Lobachevsky Project.
“This is a program of scientific and academic mobility, implemented with the support of our reliable partner – the Standing Committee for Scientific and Technical Cooperation COMSTECH,” continued Tayursky. “We allocate funds to invite foreign scientists and conduct joint research for a period of up to one year within the framework of KFU’s strategic projects. The geography of the program covers friendly countries, mainly OIC and BRICS. Taking into account that since 2024 BRICS has been joined by 4 new countries, three of which – Egypt, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates – are simultaneously OIC member states, we also count on the development of cooperation with researchers from these countries.”
According to the First Vice-Rector, some applicants – researchers from Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, India, and China – have already been pre-selected. The research areas are biomedicine and biomedical engineering, pharmacology, electrochemistry for energy, photo catalysis, and IT.
“The peculiarity of our program is the multichannel nature of funding sources. Travel grants for researchers will be financed from COMSTECH funds, and their stay in Russia will be funded from the University Development Program,” he said.
Dmitry Tayursky also stated that Kazan Federal University came up with an initiative to create a scientific and educational consortium in academic mobility.
“The co-founder of the consortium will be our respected partner – COMSTECH Standing Committee on Scientific and Technical Cooperation. One of the first Russian universities to join the consortium, in addition to KFU, will be Ural Federal University. Today we will sign an agreement,” he informed.
According to Dmitry Tayursky, the consortium will become an effective network platform for organizing exchanges of young scientists from the OIC countries and Russia who wish to take part in academic mobility programs.
“I am sure that such joint initiatives and projects with OIC countries will contribute to further development of science and higher education, strengthening of peace and universal progress,” he concluded.
Masoud Sadrinasab, Director of the Center for International Scientific Research and Cooperation at the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran, spoke about the Farabi Research Support Program.
“We have signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazan Federal University providing for cooperation innovation and technology, and in particular we envision to interact in genomic, post-genomic technologies, energy, digital technologies, improving humanitarian capacity to overcome social and economic challenges, meta-platform solutions in IT, artificial intelligence and cyber-physical systems. The objective of this memorandum is to develop and expand international research, technology development and innovation cooperation,” said the Iranian guest.
Five applicants have already been selected, and the names of the winners will be revealed soon.
Next, representative of the Standing Committee for Scientific and Technical Cooperation of the OIC countries (COMSTECH) Maham Yamin (Pakistan) and board member of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (Malaysia) Saadiah Mohamad spoke about their academic mobility programs. Sergey Tushin, Vice-Rector for International Relations of Ural Federal University, reported on his university’s cooperation with OIC countries. Anis Yusal Yusoff, Executive Director of the International Institute of Public Policy and Administration of the University of Malaya (Malaysia), spoke about educational programs for Russian civil servants.
In February of this year, KFU signed a cooperation agreement with the Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. Zahir Al Dawoodi, Head of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature of SQU, contributed to the session.
“This agreement primarily concerns the organization of winter language training programs for students of Kazan University,” said Zahir Al Dawoodi. “These programs are already being implemented. In particular, from January 18 to February 21 we hosted a group of students. Their training included classroom lectures, communication with native speakers, and immersion in Arabic culture.”
Samal Tuleubaeva, Professor of the Department of Oriental Studies at Eurasian National University (Kazakhstan), presented a report on Arab studies in her country. First Counselor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Chad Safia Ahmat Ibrahim told about the projects aimed at popularizing the Russian language and culture, as well as reported on the programs implemented with Russia and the OIC countries in health care.
At the end of the meeting, an agreement on the establishment of a consortium of academic mobility with the countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation was signed by COMSTECH, KFU and Ural Federal University. The document was signed by Dmitry Tayursky, Maham Yamin and Sergey Tushin.