The event began with a welcoming address by Vladimir Nikiforov, ITMO’s Vice Rector for Research. The plenary session included a lecture by Andrey Bruk, CEO of Carel Rus, a company specializing in refrigeration and AC systems, who used the example of vaccines to speak about the specifics of storing thermolabile materials. Other representatives of the university’s industrial partners who featured among the event’s speakers were Sergey Shadymuhamedov, head of the Oil and Gas Production Department at Gazprom Neft; Konstantin Mandelshtam, CEO of Unifood; and Vladimir Bychenok, deputy head for R&D at the Etalon research and technology center.
This year’s program underwent slight changes, with more themed sections being introduced; their total number is now 69. For instance, the Interdisciplinary Research category has been expanded with the sections Infochemistry, Art, Science & Technologies, and Evidence-Based Practices in Science Communication.
Another important – and, as it turned out, much sought-for – new feature of the event were workshops conducted by ITMO’s Soft Skills lecturers and experts. Their participants learned how to host presentations and deliver public talks, write and publish research papers, employ digital storytelling techniques and create visual content, and acquired the basic time management skills.
According to Ekaterina Khorosheva, head of the Office for Conferences and Exhibitions, the workshops were a massive success.
“The Faculty Support Office helped us find speakers. We had a limited number of spots for each workshop – and the response was so good that some of them were already closed for sign-ups on the very next day. But we learned that there’s a demand for it, so we’ll likely continue this practice next year.”
Another novelty was the video competition for prospective Master’s students – its participants will receive monetary prizes in the event that they successfully enroll at ITMO. Of the nine participants, six were named as the winners.
“The participants were tasked with sharing the results of their research. It didn’t matter what format they’d pick – an interview or a feature-length movie with skits. What mattered was that it needed to be cool, which everyone excelled at. The winners were picked by a jury of ITMO’s top scientists, experts from our partner companies, and science communicators. ITMO University’s Student Media Department helped film the videos. Winners who enroll in a Master’s program at ITMO will receive their prize in the form of a special monthly stipend,” says Oleg Eliseev, head of the Center for Student Science, Conferences, and Exhibitions.
Participants of the Congress of Young Scientists can apply to have their reports included in a compendium of the event’s works – which is included in the Russian Science Citation Index – while the best works are considered for publication in ITMO’s Journal of Instrument Engineering. Winners of the report contest will be able to enroll in Master’s programs at ITMO without the need to take entrance exams. Overall, some 185 students have been named as winners of the report contest.
