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In the next two years, Samara University will intensify student mobility programmes with the leading foreign universities preparing air transport engineers, as well as launch new training programmes for specialists in the field of aviation security and logistics.
This became possible after Samara National Research University acted as a co-founder of the International Association of Aviation and Aerospace Education (ALICANTO). The association was established under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with the direct support of its Secretary General Fang Liu. The ceremony took place during the ICAO Global Summit, which was held in December 2018, Shenzhen, China.
ICAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is responsible for safety in civil aviation, aircrafts certifying, organizing traffic in the format of air corridors, coordinating of transport issues between countries, training of flight and technical personnel for civil aviation, airport operations and much more.
ALICANTO includes 37 universities from six continents where civil aviation specialists are trained. Among them are: McGill University (Canada, the 33rd place in the QS World University Rankings), Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile (the National School of Civil Aviation in France), and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (one of the oldest aerospace universities in the United States). Russia is represented in the association by one more university – Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation.
"The association includes the world’s leading aerospace universities, – said Director of Samara University Institute of Aeronautical Engineering Valeriy Yelenev. – I think that participation in ALICANTO reflects the achievements of our university as one of the leading educational centres for engineering personnel training for civil aviation".
One of the main objectives of the ALICANTO participants is to state the coordination of the activities of universities that offer aviation-related educational programmes at global and regional levels. The first practical step in this direction was the decision on the joint recognition of bachelor’s and master’s degrees by the universities-participants.
The next step in the work of the Institute of Aeronautical Engineering within the association will be to build up exchange programmes with the universities participating in ALICANTO. “We intend to systematically increase the intensity and format of cooperation with the association’s universities, – says Valeriy Yelenev. – At the first stage, we are ready to offer international exchange programmes for students enrolled in similar programmes of other foreign universities. The next step is the joint development of new, modern curricula in the field of aviation security, aircraft maintenance and logistics, including the use of network forms of education".
For reference
Training of aircrafts engineers on the basis of Samara University has been carried out since 1952. The structure of the Institute of Aeronautical Engineering has its own training airfield, which has 25 units of various aircrafts of Russian and foreign production, including the legendary supersonic passenger aircraft Tu-144.
The university has a modern training complex that models the main servicing technological processes of the most popular and mass aircrafts of modern civil aviation – the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 families.
Since 2016, in the framework of the project with Kingston University (London, the United Kingdom), the institute has been participating in the European ERASMUS + programme, within which the summer school "Exploitation Aspects of Aviation Security" was organized and conducted. One of the results of the cooperation was also the joint Russian-British master’s programme “Airworthiness Support and Safety Management” (in collaboration with Kingston University, London, the UK).
Today, more than 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students, including 416 foreign students from 41 countries, are studying at the Institute of Aeronautical Engineering of Samara University. Exchange programmes are being implemented with universities of China and Malaysia.
