Organizational and consulting support for development and launching the projects aimed at enhancing competitiveness of Tomsk State University

Implementation period: 2019  

Principal goal of the project: to identify the most promising areas of work for Tomsk State University and propose projects in the selected areas to help TSU to strengthen its competitive position in the R&D and education markets and to rise in global  rankings.

Tomsk State University is one of the universities included in the 5-100 Project, a program aimed at enhancing competitiveness of Russian universities and improving their positions in global rankings. The universities participating in this program have a great responsibility. They must demonstrate high dynamics of performance indicators of their research and educational activities. In order to achieve this goal, it would be necessary to implement new development projects.

Areas of work identified during the work include directions, where TSU has development potential and which are relevant in the world
• New educational technologies
• Space technologies
• Biotechnology and biomedicine

In the course of the work, an analysis of breakthrough science and technology topics and the dynamics of the development of technological markets in these areas, was carried out, which made it possible to set the scientific and technological agenda, relevant for the university, and promising in terms of attracting the necessary resources.

 “Often, ties between universities and industry are not too close, universities lack proper experience in dealing with companies and raising money from the real sector. Offering the university new strategic directions and new organizational projects, we also try to identify companies – potential partners of TSU in a particular area, and the potential subject for cooperation between a company and the university. Now we have a clear understanding of what has to be done and where to go”, says Elena Tibina, the project team leader.

As part of the educational direction, CSR "North-West" experts conducted a foresight conference, which was attended by all TSU teams involved in new educational technologies, and also by external experts in the field of digital university, neurocognitive technologies and big data in education. The participants identified several breakthrough areas in which TSU needs to invest efforts. A seminar on the priority projects of digital transformation of TSU is scheduled for the end of August.

“We have the subject for further work. To develop the key topics, identified together with TSU, we need teams that will transform research outputs into commercial products. It is necessary to find these people and start working with them. TSU should set up one or several units, engaged in turning prototypes into a final commercial product”, says Elena Tibina, the project manager.

As part of the space technologies direction, the program participants put forward the idea of establishing a Space Research Center which should become an integrator of all the production technologies needed to achieve the most ambitious scientific and technological super tasks of Roscosmos. As a result of joint work with the ISS Reshetnev company and RSC Energia at a workshop conducted within the framework of the U-Novus forum, the TSU team identified main directions of development of the modern space industry, defined the main tasks facing the new Center, developed the financial and business model of the Center, and also predicted its development stages, right down to the task schedule and payback periods.

Another initiative under development – the personnel training  center within the framework of the world-class science and education center. It will serve as a basis for conducting internships and implementing pilot projects aimed at emergence of world-class labs in Tomsk Oblast.