The University’s student scientific societies and technical clubs held public defense of projects applying for the grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

The strategic session dedicated to developing the University’s student scientific societies was held on the venue of the Boiling Point. Rector Vladimir Bogatyrev and young scientists Denis Orlov, Elena Shikhanova, Aleksander Kuzin, Ivan Zubrilin took part in assessing the projects presented by the SSS.

The session was organized by the Council of Young Scientists and Specialists (CYSS), with support of the Youth Policy Implementation Department of the Extra-Curricular Activities Office.

Who is right in outer space

Thus, the SSS of the Law Institute presented their project “Legal support in the field of outer space”. Student Ivan Belyaev noted that they invite to the dialogue in the field of Outer Space Law not only students of the Institute and universities of the Samara Region, but also students of universities all over the country.

Quanta, butterflies and learning

The Natural Science Institute was represented by several student scientific societies at once.

So, representatives of the SSS “Quantum Outer Space” of the Physics Faculty told the audience about their students’ participation in the NICA mega-science project. They hope to receive support and get to Almaty in May, for taking part in the meeting of the SPD NICA collaboration, at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan. In the summer, the Scientific School-Seminar on Theoretical and Experimental Particle Physics is scheduled to be held jointly with the Council of Young Scientists of the United Institute of Nuclear Research (UINR), with representatives of UINR, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Saratov to be invited. The Department of General and Theoretical Physics has scheduled the series of lectures given for students and schoolchildren by leading experts in atomic nucleus and elementary particle physics.

Anastasia Konashenkova, Chairperson of the SSS at the Faculty of Biology, informed about the Career Guidance Intensive “Foundation of the Future”. The Intensive will help senior students find employers and build their career trajectories. Undergraduate students will be able to decide on the scientific research theme, find their supervisors and choose the specialized department.

Another project of the biologists – “Creation of Unique Artificial Growth Medium (AGM) for Butterfly Caterpillars” – was presented by the Smart Butterfly House. Student Savely Knyazkin explained that this will help reduce the incubation period, accelerate development of caterpillars, increase their weight gain, and improve their survival, productivity, and reduce morbidity. The student noted that this development will help producers of silkworms, and therefore will contribute to producing silk. Another area of the development application is breeding tobacco hawk moth, which is used as protein feed for animals (as entomoprotein, rich in amino acids, important for health of the human nervous system).

Savely explained that almost all effective AGM are currently patented, kept secret and excessively expensive compared to their cost price. However, having unraveled the secret of their manufacturing, one can safely experiment on growing any species of butterflies. This will facilitate for the Smart Butterfly House to achieve self-sufficiency, as well as establish year-round mass breeding of caterpillars and butterflies, which will create the basis for a larger-scale project related to production of AGM for other animals.

Anthropological expedition

Students of the SSS at the Faculty of History presented their project “ProYar”. Krasny Yar is a location with high density of Slavic-mythology guardians and worshippers. That is why in July, an anthropological expedition is scheduled. it is supposed to result in releasing a documentary film about Slavic culture in the village of Krasny Yar, as well as writing collective articles by the expedition participants.

What is astrosociology?

The Faculty of Sociology presented several new events.

So, Elena Suprun, Chairperson of the SSS at the Faculty of Sociology, supported their teachers’ idea to hold the All-Russian Conference dedicated to for the 35th anniversary of the Faculty. She noted that, having received funding last year, their event “Day of Sociologist” and their community “Sociodigest” reached a new level and became known not only among students-sociologists.

The SSS activist Timur Kusmanov proposed to develop at the University astrosociology. This area of sociology will allow studying not only people’s comprehension of outer space and extraterrestrial objects, but also finding out how cosmonaut families’ lives have changed after their brother, husband, father, son went to conquer outer space. The students really want to invite participants of the study to Samara, for celebrating the Day of Sociologist.
One more project concerned the Year of the Family. Student Oleg Gnutov proposed to give the series of lectures on Family Sociology. Lecturers could be both teachers and students.

We want to study rock poetry

Already on March 1, within the Regional Methodological Theoretical Seminar “Theoretical Studies”, the Faculty of Philology and Journalism is going to hold the master-class “Narrative Text Analysis”. In April, it is scheduled to hold the festival-conference, the program of which will include the concert dedicated to rock poetry. Participants in the festival will get acquainted with studies on the history of rock clubs’ creation, as well as the survey of rock poetry texts. Philologists plan to end this academic year by discussing findings of the research of local urban texts in the media, which will be presented at the Round Table “Synthesis of Artistic: Urban Text and Forms of Its Embodiment”.

Barbecue for programmers

Ruslan Fazylov from the SSS at the Institute of Informatics and Cybernetics spoke about the project of the field intensive on programming “Coding at Countryside”. This is an opportunity for IT students to learn outdoors new programming methods at a recreation center, combining communication with the partner company’s software developers and barbecue, as well as solving hackathon tasks.

Economists need the intensive

The SSS at the Institute of Economics and Management presented their project “School of Young Economist and Manager”. The School aims to involve talented students in scientific activities of the Institute. The program includes master classes on defining the field of scientific interests, writing and formatting articles, and receiving bonuses from participating in conferences and contests related to research work of students.

Engineers’ new projects

The University’s Association of Technical Clubs has won a grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, in the amount of 3 million rubles, for two years in a row (2022, 2023). Moreover, in 2023, sociologists joined the University’s traditionally strong technical SSS and “diluted” technical schools, hackathons, etc. with their project “Sociodigest”.

This year, the Association of Technical Clubs has proposed several new activities aimed at students of other universities in the region. It is planned to hold the events once a quarter. At the School of Satellite Engineering, “Outer Space Gradient” offers students and schoolchildren to assemble atmospheric probes and launch them from the island of Proran. The Makerton “Back to the Future” proposed by the Electronics Fan Club “Kontur” also sees students of the region as its audience.

Note:

Vladimir Bogatyrev, Rector of Samara University,

“Now, there is a steady trend in developing universities: new research structural units grow out of activities of a small, often youth, but extremely proactive and creative team. One of the example is the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, which has grown from the innovative structure created on the basis of existing groundwork in three years into a research – and, since this year, also educational – unit.

I see such growth points in student scientific societies that have recently appeared in almost all our Institutes. It is very interesting to observe how a team forms around an idea. The University is ready to support this team, help with resources and premises. And you grow, your competencies grow too, and then your student club turns into a full-fledged university unit with dozens of employees, large budgets, serious contracts, and grants. And even if you are currently at the initial stage of growth, the University hopefully watches your activities that are likely to bring new important interesting areas to our scientific palette, which previously were not in the orbit of our interests”.

Yulia Novikova, Chairperson of the Council of Young Scientists and Specialists,

“Since 2021, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia has systematically been supporting student scientific associations. So, they have been organized the SSS competition, in framework of which 40 winners receive grants in the amount of 1, 3 or 5 million rubles each. The funds can be used for organizing scientific events, academic mobility, measures to support student scientific research and much more. Each subsequent application from our University includes the increasing number of areas, with interdisciplinary projects to begin appearing. This is very interesting to watch”.

Yulia Novikova, photo by Olga Zharkova