REC Engineering of the Future Wins Federal Competition and Gains World-Class Status

On Thursday, December 3, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced the results of the competitive selection for research and education centers which will receive state support. Interregional Research and Education Center (REC) Engineering of the Future ranked among top five winners in the federal competition and gained world-class status.

“There are five centers selected, most of them are interregional. They are: Engineering of the Future, Advanced Industrial Technologies and Materials, Russian Arctic: New Materials, Technologies and Research Methods, World-Class Eurasian Scientific and Educational Center and TulaTECH. All of them boast high research and HR potential and extensive infrastructure,” Mr. Mishustin said. “Further development of such centers will allow not only to achieve the goals as stated by the President, but also to take Russian science to new global-scale highs. The project is also expected to help improve the potential of Russian regions.”

“We have won this competition. And today, at the session of the Government of the Russian Federation, our REC Engineering of the Future was awarded this high rate,” said Dmitry Azarov, Governor of the Samara Region. “This will provide a new impetus to the development of our science school, help our educational institutions, universities and enterprises. The REC will become the nucleus of economy of the future, which will contribute to the success of every resident of our region.” Head of the region thanked everyone who was involved in the establishment of the center and managing its research activities: rectors of universities, university researchers, industrial partners and regional leaders who became partners in creating the research and education center.

REC Engineering of the Future was created in May 2019 upon the initiative of Dmitry Azarov and soon became center of gravity for science schools and industrial enterprises in a number of Russian regions.

The Governor presented the REC project early this week, at the meeting of the Council of Research and Education Centers. “The creation of Engineering of the Future, the world-class research and education center, is a logical step in the development of innovative practices in science and education sectors of the Samara, Ulyanovsk, Penza, Tambov regions and the Republic of Mordovia,” the Governor said. “Today, in the tough economic context, we are confident that the REC will become the powerful engine within the full range of measures we undertake to ensure that our economy reaches a new level.”

Head of the Samara region explained that the activities of the center will be focused on five areas of development, including new generation propulsion and fuel systems, artificial intelligence devices, smart transport systems, aerospace technologies, as well as new engineering competencies, including high-tech medicine and digital agriculture.

“We have set a rather challenging target for our center: to achieve global leadership in scientific and technological development and personnel training in the areas covered by the activities of the REC,” Dmitry Azarov said.

Over a year and a half since its launch, the center Engineering of the Future has acquired anchor industrial partners, including Rostec State Corporation, Roscosmos State Corporation, and JSC Russian Railways. Considerable work is being done to build productive relationships with Rosatom, Sberbank, Gazprom and Novatek.

In total, 42 organizations have joined the Samara REC. Much attention is paid to international level activities. “We have created an interregional center for the development of public diplomacy and international relations on the basis of our REC. Despite the pandemic, we have held a good series of meetings with scientists from abroad. At the same time, we understand that our closest strategic partner in this project is the Republic of Belarus, the constituent member of our Union State. We have already signed an agreement with the Agricultural Academy and are currently actively involving their researchers in the work of our Smart Agro Committee. We have reached an agreement to sign cooperation projects with the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and State University,” the Governor continued.

Dmitry Azarov named several key projects of the center and discussed the first results of the center’s activities. For instance, as of today, the REC has developed a unique system for storing hydrogen in liquid organic media, which is 1.5 times more energy efficient as compared to the similar existing systems with a comparable amount of fuel storage capacity.

In addition, there is an on-going project to develop a digital platform for personalized medicine, which is based on the works of the leading schools of thought in the area of artificial intelligence and medicine in the Samara Region. The Pirogov Table and various medical products using virtual and augmented reality mechanisms have already been introduced and are mass-produced now.

Works to create an innovative gas generator for an engine with 24 tons of thrust have been started. Other projects include manufacturing of parts using rapid prototyping methods, which helped reduce the cost of the product's life cycle at the manufacturing stage and increase the engine resource as a whole.

According to the Governor, the projects done by Engineering of the Future REC are not only significant in achieving top priority projects in scientific and technological development of this country, but also make the outcomes economically significant, since they are targeted towards new rapidly growing global markets.

The research and education center of the Samara Region gained the world-class status following a rigorous competitive selection. Vladimir Bogatyrev, Rector of Samara National Research University and Head of the Managing Board of the REC Engineering of the Future, believes that this decision will affect not only the science and technology sphere but also help improve the socio-economic development of all regions that are part of the center.

“We will obtain a significant socio-economic effect: increase the number of researchers and help keep young people in the region. We want to develop cooperation with corporations, as well as increase the volume of the gross regional product of the regions participating in the center to the levels significantly higher than before the global pandemic,” Vladimir Bogatyrev said. “Winning the federal budget grant by our REC is the result of the work done by interregional teams of professionals representing participants and partners of the center, researchers and practitioners who work on expanding the frontiers in their subject areas and offer feasible yet quite ambitious products for implementation.”

According to the decree by President Vladimir Putin, at least 15 world-class research and education centers have to be created in Russia within the next few years. “They will bring together leading universities, research organizations, and companies in the real sector of the economy. Based on these centers, we will build an advanced model of research and development, train qualified specialists for solving major tasks in the sphere of science and technology,” Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said.

Source: samregion.ru