A High-level Meeting at the St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University#

On 23 January, Nikolai Patrushev, Chairman of the Russian Maritime Board, conducted a meeting with regional leaders, university rectors, Russia’s Minister of Education Valery Falkov, and Naval Commander-in-Chief Alexander Moiseev.

As can be seen, the level of the meeting was quite high (comparable to that of a plenary session of any forum), given that it was held at the St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University. This suggests that the country has set a clear goal to act swiftly in marine education. The tasks are also set, focusing on developing:

• Low and medium-speed motors
• Robotics and instrument engineering

An interesting point is the use of two phrases: ‘technical leadership’ and ‘technical sovereignty’ by Nikolai Patrushev.

A representative from the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Andrey Buzinov, also highlighted the company’s three priorities, which are practically the same:

• Engineering
• Digital transformation
• Production efficiency

Mikhail Kovalchuk’s Views on Marine Education#

During the meeting, Mikhail Kovalchuk, President of the Kurchatov Institute, offered his comments on engineering education for the Arctic.

Speaking about education, we should formulate a new concept of Arctic development, fleet, and all related systems and adjust the engineering education system accordingly.

Kovalchuk proposed creating an association of shipbuilding universities in the country based on the St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University.

To add to the concept of technical sovereignty, the Institute’s president seemingly used the phrase that the Arctic becomes a ‘geopolitical polygon of the future’, where the two proposed bases for development, the main benefits for Russia, are small nuclear power reactor technologies and cheap logistics.

Interestingly, he forecasted:

If we continue to move within the paradigm we are used to, we will lose everything. I say this quite responsibly.

Unsurprisingly, on 27 January, both Mikhail Kovalchuk and Nikolai Patrushev met during the Chairman’s visit to the Institute’s Prometey—a centre for developing unique materials for harsh climatic conditions.

Deficit of Specialists in the Arctic#

Not long after, on 28 January, the Vice-President of Nornickel Andrey Grachev stated that there is a deficit of 300,000 specialists in Siberia. According to the businessman, Nornickel alone had to open HR centres in different cities to find 10,000 new employees.

He also called for reprofiling the educational system and introducing a new system of employees’ retraining.

A Slow Path to Technological Sovereignty#

We can expect more news soon regarding engineering education for the Arctic. There is likely a programme being developed to achieve ‘technical leadership’ right at this moment.

Although it seems like an almost impossible goal under today’s market economy conditions to attain technological sovereignty, it is positive that Russia understands that the start lies in the sphere of education and pinpoints the key issues, striving to solve them from different perspectives.

Possibly, this is exactly the needed format of cooperation represented by the involvement of statesmen, regional leaders, business representatives, and science. However, one should not expect fast results, as education reacts very slowly to any changes—e.g., Russia is still about to abolish the Bologna System in education.

AUTHOR

Dmitry Tarasov
Junior Research Fellow
Petrozavodsk State University