The guest of our section: the rector of Omsk Agrarian State University named after P.A. Stolypin, Deputy Chairman of the General Meeting of Omsky Biocluster Association Oksana SHUMAKOVA
- Ms. SHUMAKOVA, good afternoon!
- Good afternoon!
- Ms. SHUMAKOVA, what was the motivation to establish Omsky Biocluster at Omsk SAU? What is behind the decision?
- First of all, it gives us the opportunity to directly contact the local producers, because the cluster meetings are usually hosted at Omsk SAU and we are really happy about it. We are delighted to provide any kind of methodological, organizational, informational, expert and analytical support to the cluster members. We regularly learning something new, trying to stay tuned with our cluster partners and keep up with their news and main events.
- What specialists do you think are the most demanded by local agricultural producers nowadays? Do you take this into account when planning the educational process?
- Graduate employability index is utterly important for every higher educational institution. It is important not only for good efficiency monitoring results or superior positions in different ranking systems, in particular, National rating of the most demanded universities, but also for strengthening the university’s positions in the market of educational services. Undoubtedly, this index is a measure of training quality and a measure of demand for the university’s scientific and educational potential in a labor market. We get the information on the demand for agricultural graduates from official resources and directly from potential employers through the regular monitoring. In 2016 we’ve kick-started a new project, which is called The Career Office, HR officers conduct regular surveys of final year students. This allows us to have an access to the level of demand for vacancies, while studying the market supply. Primarily, nowadays there is a high demand for workers and specialists with technical education, such as engineers, mechanics, processors, etc. In the long run, there will be demand for the specialists in information technologies and nanotechnologies and also for the specialists working at the interface of technology and nature, for instance bioengineers, engineers-chemists, engineers-technologists.
Answering your question, we do consider the labor market conjuncture and aimed to meet the market demand for qualified personnel, particularly but not exclusively by reinforcing the role of additional vocational education, establishing the centers of practical training and marketing (currently, there are six already operating centers established by Omsk SAU). These measures, among other things, will help to address the lack of class hours, provided by study plans, in order to fully develop professional competencies, required by a modern specialist. It is an open secret that having a blue-collar education (or even a number of) along with a bachelor or master degree will not only improve the value of a graduate for a potential employer, but also positively impact the image of the University.
- How successful the University is in research work? How do you approach R&D commercialization?
- Perhaps, there is no organisation in Omsk region but Omsk SAU with such a potential for research in the field of agriculture and related fields. We have more than 400 PhDs and over 40 doctorates, who jointly covers a wide range of research fields from agricultural technology to the challenges of zootechnics. But nevertheless, first we gear our scientific prospects to the National Strategy of Scientific and technological development up to 2035, approved by presidential decree in December 2016. This document outlines the whole range of relevant to us scientific fields. Next thematic block is set by The Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Omsk region. The authority orders researches on the most acute and important topics for the region through competitive bidding. In 2017 those are the issues of agrotechnology of advanced agricultural crops, issues of animal’s longevity, issues of idle lands adoption and a number of other topics. Talking about commercialization, primarily we see our prospects in the grant programmes of the Innovations Assistance Fund. In 2017 Omsk SAU has been appointed as regional representative of the Fund in Omsk region. On the whole, we are actively taking part in different kind of programs, such as like Umnik, Start, Commercializaciya and others. We are looking forward to cooperating closely with the cluster members within these programs. Successful cooperation of the scientists from Omsk SAU and Titan Group is a case in point, which resulted in commercialization of new wheat variety named Element-22, currently the most resistant among others to brown and barberry rust. Moreover, last year we’ve branched out a business incubator, we regularly hold regional contests for young innovators, massively contribute to 4 small innovative enterprises, where the University acts as a founder.
- Omsk State Agrarian University is on the threshold of 100th anniversary. Is it the time to gather stones or make new ambitious plans?
- This anniversary is a good reason to take the stock of the work and set new paths of development.
Today, the University has a solid research base, which counts over 20 up-to-day labs, such as the laboratory of selection and seed production of field crops named after S.I. Leont’ev, the laboratory of cereals genetics, the laboratory of reagents, sensorics and product quality management. Over 100 years there were trained 83 000 graduates and 1500 post-graduates. We have 21 successfully operating scientific schools and 9 scientific fields nowadays. Last Day of Science we established a business incubator, this year we opened a training and innovative center of materials processing at the faculty of technical service in agribusiness.
It shouldn’t be unmentioned that Omsk SAU is not only the academic buildings, modern library, sports hall with swimming pool, canteen, shop, clinic, post office, but also it’s the unique natural and architectural complex in the heart of the big industrial city. The real legacy of the University is the scientists and teachers behind it, those, who were standing at the origin, creating and planting new varieties of agricultural crops, studying fertility and ecology of soils, producing food products, giving treatment to animals, constructing machines, conducting economic calculations for the development of rural areas, and the most important thing – were training and still training qualified personnel for Siberian agribusiness. I’m fairly convinced that business image of the University is shaped by its graduates, we are really proud of them! Many hold senior positions in public authorities and large businesses, glorifying their Alma Mater. Achievements in the field of science and innovations, a variety of relevant educational programs, a wide range of additional educational services, active participation in external events of the all-Russian and international levels – is the image of a modern, dynamically developing university and Omsk State Agrarian University today perfectly fits the description!
- Ms. SHUMAKOVA, thank you! We wish you and all the staff of the university to continue to solve such ambitions!
- Thank you!
Omsky Biocluster Press Secretary Ravshana Balloyeva (together with Press-service of OmSAU)
