Young steelworkers will learn how to operate UAVs

How many students competed for each available place at the Polar State University in 2023? What specialties are the most popular among young people?

Evgeniy Golubev: In the new academic year, there are 400 freshmen at the Polar State University, almost 50 percent more than the previous year. During the application campaign this summer, we received 1,300 applications for almost 300 tuition-free places, including additional admissions.

The most popular specialties are Management, Construction, Mining, IT, and Economics.

The University’s traditional educational offering has been significantly transformed: today it is Advanced Technologies in Non-Ferrous Metallurgy. We have added two new specialties — Digital Marketing and Content Management, and Digital Engineering and 3D Metal Printing, which proved to be very popular among applicants. Classes in the new specialties have already started.

The University recently transformed its metallurgy program. What has changed?

Arkady Tarasevich: In order to design a new program in Metallurgy, we brought in external experts — top specialists from the Institute of Metallurgy and Materials Science named after Alexander Baikov of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The new program draws on the latest achievements and current trends in metallurgy.

There is a stereotype about great careers in finance and management, while jobs in the metal industry are associated with hard physical labor in hazardous conditions. It is no longer the case.

What other new promising programs do you offer, including those in partnership with Nornickel?

Arkady Tarasevich: The Polytechnic School of the Polar State University is currently developing a new program for operators of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and engineers who will service them. Since drone control heavily relies on artificial intelligence, this area of study will be included in the program.

UAVs have many civilian applications. Drones monitor process equipment, utilities, gas mains, slurry pipelines, power lines, and workplace safety compliance. UAVs are increasingly used for surveying and gas analysis.

UAVs can serve as an alternative to air transport to deliver small and medium-sized cargo (up to hundreds of kilograms) to hard-to-reach areas in the polar regions. AI makes it possible to search and detect objects in the tundra.

In an earlier interview, you emphasized the need to make science more applied, especially since the Polar State University is well-positioned to do so because of its close proximity to production sites. What steps are you taking to achieve this goal?

Arkady Tarasevich: Over recent decades, the gap between fundamental and applied science has been growing. Today applied science, what’s left of it after the 1990s, primarily serves the defense industry, nuclear energy, and space industry. So the first thing to do is to make science see real issues and technological challenges that industry encounters.

Both parties need instruments that will help them hear each other and find common ground. Industry tends to expect specific solutions, innovation implementation, and ready-to-use technologies. All science can offer today is laboratory findings and no understanding of how to apply them.

We need a system of intermediate links for piloting and scaling up fundamental science concepts.