Mikhail Mishustin: “It is crucial that the knowledge and skills of university and college graduates align with the current needs of industries and specific companies. A key factor in the success of our shared efforts in this area is maintaining maximum flexibility and a readiness to update the existing standards.”
Mikhail Mishustin chairs a strategic session on advancing higher education and secondary vocational institutions dedicated to training engineering professionals and driving scientific innovations to support technological leadership
Mikhail Mishustin chairs a strategic session on advancing higher education and secondary vocational institutions dedicated to training engineering professionals and driving scientific innovations to support technological leadership
Mikhail Mishustin chairs a strategic session on advancing higher education and secondary vocational institutions dedicated to training engineering professionals and driving scientific innovations to support technological leadership
Mikhail Mishustin chairs a strategic session on advancing higher education and secondary vocational institutions dedicated to training engineering professionals and driving scientific innovations to support technological leadership
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Today, we will address a variety of issues central to advancing engineering education, from enhancing curricula to establishing modern infrastructure for scientific research and innovation.
Russia’s technological sovereignty relies heavily on its human capital, particularly its technical specialists. Ensuring the highest quality of their education is essential, especially now, as unprecedented sanctions present serious challenges to domestic industries. It is crucial that the knowledge and skills of university and college graduates align with the current needs of industries and specific companies.
A key factor in the success of our shared efforts in this area is maintaining maximum flexibility and a readiness to update the existing standards. Successfully completing this task is essential for achieving the technological sovereignty emphasised by the President and for ensuring the nation’s overall economic growth.
In total, industries will require over one and a half million qualified professionals in the next five years. Additionally, the demand for engineers has increased by 2.5 times in just the past three years.
Thanks to the decisions taken and the support measures, the industry continues to show strong momentum. The results are evident: production volumes over the past nine months have risen by 4.5 percent, including nearly double growth in the manufacturing sector, which employs around 10 million people.
This progress is mirrored in students’ growing interest in technical subjects, as they increasingly view these disciplines as pathways to high demand and promising career prospects.
As instructed by the President, we need to train at least one million workers and specialists across all major sectors within the next three years. To achieve this, we are actively establishing educational clusters in close cooperation with leading enterprises under the Professionalitet federal project. Approximately 160 clusters have already been created in various fields, including the mining industry, light industry, forestry, metallurgy, radio electronics, pharmaceuticals, the chemical industry, electrical engineering, fuel and energy, as well as machine-building and robotics. These clusters will eventually encompass all regions and sectors.
The Advanced Engineering Schools initiative has also proven to be effective.
Fifty such centres have begun operations at local universities, with plans to double their number in line with the President’s directive. Our partners
include hundreds of high-tech companies, with around 70 being industrial
leaders across diverse fields such as the automotive industry, aviation and shipbuilding.
To support Russian universities, we are implementing the Priority 2030
programme. Our special grants aim to expedite university-level research
projects and align them with modern production facilities. This will enable the launch of more efficient technological projects, innovative enterprises and promising start-ups.
We are developing an extensive network of modern facilities with well-equipped lecture rooms,
laboratories and comfortable dormitories. This academic year, the first such
world-class campus opened at Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and we
plan to build at least 40 similar campuses.
The President has emphasised the need to act more swiftly than planned, focusing
on training skilled personnel and developing our own advanced technologies. To accomplish this, we must
strengthen the connections between all levels of education, working together
towards a unified goal.
To accomplish our goals, we must modernise the operational formats of educational institutions, particularly those specialising in technology. It is important to determine their key development vectors for a long term and to ensure that they are oriented towards socially significant achievements.
It is also advisable to establish the required level of equipment in these educational institutions – specifically, the equipment that our young students will use for learning purposes.
Major higher education institutions will receive particular attention. The strategic initiatives include the transformation of their main specialisations, with a special focus on career guidance and the research and development sector. It is essential to have an in-depth understanding of the models of our cooperation with industrial companies – and, of course, to implement the mechanisms for participation in the national tech leadership projects that we are launching next year.
Colleagues,
During the discussion, we must make key decisions on new system-wide approaches to organising the activities of technical universities, colleges and vocational schools, including in view of the best practices by leading Russian universities.
Additionally, today’s strategic session takes place in the run-up to the Mechanical Engineer’s Day, which we mark on October 30. It is a professional holiday for designers, engineers, technologists, professors and students of specialised educational institutions. Certainly, many of those present here and via videoconference are directly related to this line of work and this holiday.
Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely congratulate everyone who has dedicated themselves to the demanding profession of invention. You are the people who think outside the box, coming up with original ideas and solutions to advance technological progress and, most importantly, who change people’s lives for the better and make our country stronger.
