Why did you decide to work at ITMO University?
I worked in Denmark, the UK and Portugal. My colleague talked me about ITMO Fellowship program, which gave researchers an opportunity to come to St. Petersburg in order to deal with various fields; one of them was very interesting for me. Currently apart from research activities I give lectures on nonlinear oscillations once or twice a week and also supervise the research projects of Master and PhD students.
You worked at three European universities. Please share your experience.
My PhD thesis was connected with electromagnetic wave propagation in superconductive material. I had a six-month internship in Technical University of Denmark. Then I decided to focus on optics and started working as a postdoc fellowship at University of Strathclyde. I also worked at University of Bath and University of Bristol. Then I started working at University of Lisbon, which launched a program for researchers, which was equivalent to ITMO Fellowship.
You spent a lot of time working in Europe. Do you think that Russian universities are competitive in the global educational arena?
Russian education has both advantages and disadvantages. It is based on the high-grade academic tradition developed in the Soviet Union (USSR). Thus Russian professors can share their experience not only in Russia, but also in Europe meeting the best educational standards. However the efforts of some skilled researchers are not enough to support and develop Russian science. That is why it was left behind by world`s science in 1990`s when the country had difficult times. Some of researchers left Russia, others ones needed a lot of time to adapt to new conditions. Nevertheless some Russian research teams launch up-to-date scientific projects. Moreover, Russian researchers are still respected all round the globe.
What about young researchers? Which of them are top-level experts?
Fortunately most of skilled academics didn`t migrate from Russia and shared their experience with young researchers who contribute to Russian science nowadays.
Who should improve the quality of research in Russia?
Unlike nature law the arrangement of modern world is unstable. It means that researchers have to be flexible and learn a lot. I suppose that scientists who have made a career in large international research centers can share their experience. It would be better to make grant management system more structured and offer more positions for researchers as well. It is also very important to distinguish applied and theoretical fields and pay attention to the last one.
It is impossible to apply the results of a theoretical research immediately. For example, when Newton's second law of motion was invented researchers couldn`t apply it for farming needs at the same time.Theoretical science helps researchers to estimate the efficiency of new high-tech inventions.
