International applicants enrolling in Master’s degree or postgraduate programmes can study at South Ural State University (SUSU) free of charge, upon winning in the Open Doors International Olympiad of the Association of Global Universities. SUSU, being one of the leading universities in Russia, acts as the organizer of the Olympiad.
As many as 21 Candidates and Doctors of Sciences of South Ural State University are ready to become academic advisors of Master’s degree and postgraduate students in various fields: from literary studies to industrial ecology.
SUSU postgraduate and Master’s degree students, who are interested in working with renewable energy sources will be mentored by Doctor of Sciences (Engineering) Evgeniy Solomin. The main direction of his work is aimed at studying the use of wind energy. For example, jointly with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the team of Evgeny Solomin is developing wind turbines with vertical axial rotation.
– Evgeniy, what is the purpose of SUSU’s participation in the Open Doors Olympiad?
– The goal of the Olympiad is to help academic advisors select good students and postgraduates from abroad. SUSU is interested in involving young researchers of high level of training into real science and defending theses.
– You are an academic advisor of the Renewable Energy Sources. Wind-power Engineering programme. What are your responsibilities?
– My responsibilities within the framework of the Open Doors Olympiad do not differ from those of an academic advisor at all. I choose a topic that suits both an applicant and me: it is important to understand in which field this person was engaged before and what s/he is interested in now. In addition, the topic should fit into our early developments, because the already established fields are already yielding results: our team wins grants and publishes papers in high-ranking journals. In this case, when developing new directions, one can consult with experts in related topics, publish scientific articles, and then defend theses based on this material. Now, applying such an approach, I am working with two postgraduates from Iraq and one from China.
At the final stage of the Postgraduate Track Olympiad, I, as an academic advisor, will interview applicants who are interested in conducting research in our direction. If the level of knowledge and interest of the applicant is sufficient, I will recommend this person for admission to our postgraduate studies programme.
– What qualifications do the participants of the Olympiad need to have to start working under your leadership?
– We have very high requirements. We publish achievements in Q1 journals, and over 2021 we published more than 10 articles co-authoring with postgraduates and international colleagues. Our developments are at the world level, therefore, the activities of international Master’s degree and postgraduate students should contribute to world science, be accompanied by serious publications and even start-ups.
Moreover, we are planning to select those who already speak or really wish to learn Russian. The thing is that Master’ degree students can defend their works in English, but the defence of candidate and doctoral dissertations should be done only in Russian. The candidate does his/her job, but the academic advisor gets to do a huge part of it, including a high-quality translation of the dissertation and abstract into Russian. Interaction with an international postgraduate requires much more time, so their choice is a scrupulous matter.
– What will participants of the Open Doors Olympiad gain?
– Master’s degree students will be provided access to our information on current world-class developments. And then they will be able to go further or follow the streamlined paths, conduct developments in already developed fields, or develop the entire fields. We have a lot of ideas. Postgraduates, as a rule, tend to engage in completely new directions. We assign a senior postgraduate, who already has skills in a certain area to mentor the novice and then we watch him/her comprehending the basics of science. If everything works out well, we allocate a new direction to this postgraduate. If not, or the feedback is scarce, we give him/her applied problems to work on. Sometimes applicants, looking at the elders, begin to study more intensively, overcome barriers and enter the scientific expanses.
South Ural State University is a university of digital transformations, where innovative research is conducted in most of the priority fields of science and technology development. In accordance with the strategy of scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation, the university is focused on the development of big scientific interdisciplinary projects in the field of digital industry, materials science, and ecology. In 2021 SUSU became the winner in the competition under the Priority 2030 program. The university acts as a regional project office of the World-class Ural Interregional Research and Education Centre (UIREC).