Ural Federal University

Ural Federal University (UrFU)

Уральский федеральный университет имени первого Президента России Б.Н. Ельцина
Latin: Universitas Uralensis
Former names	Ural State University, Ural State Technical University
Motto	Russian: Думай, делай, достигай! Latin: Cogitare, agere, consequi!
Motto in English	Think, act, achieve![1]
Type	Public
Established	1920 (was established), 2011 (was integrated)
Endowment	RUB 5,2 million(~158 thousands USD) (2012)[2]
President	Stanislav Naboychenko
Rector	Victor Koksharov
Academic staff	5640
Students	57000
Doctoral students	650
Location	Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia 56°50′38″N 60°39′14″E / 56.8440°N 60.6539°E / 56.8440; 60.6539Coordinates: 56°50′38″N 60°39′14″E / 56.8440°N 60.6539°E / 56.8440; 60.6539
Campus	urban
Colors
Affiliations	University of the Arctic,[3] Association of Sino-Russian Technical Universities,[4] Russian Council on International Affairs,[5] The Euroasian Universities Association,[6] Association of technical universities of Russia and China,[7] International Association of Architecture and Construction Higher Educational Institutions, Association of Russian leading Universities,[8] Erasmus Mundus Triple I[9]
Website	http://urfu.ru

The Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin (Russian: Уральский федеральный университет имени первого Президента России Б.Н. Ельцина, Uralʹskiĭ federalʹnyĭ universitet imeni pervogo Prezidenta Rossii B.N. Yelʹtsina, often shortened to UrFU, УрФУ)(formed by a merger of the Ural State Technical University and Ural State University) is one of the leading educational institutions in the Ural region. Ural Federal University acts as a research and innovation center of the Ural region, has close cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences. Training of students is carried out in three main directions and 67 academic majors. The links between the university and intermediate and elementary educational institutions are developed. The University performs consistent work on establishing strategic partnership with employers for the development of the regional economy: employers are involved in the educational environment as direct participants, large-scale target preparation of students and corporate education are carried out on the basis of the client-centered approach, joint business projects in economic and social activity are realized.

History

USTU (UPI)

USU

The Ural University is the oldest university in Ural region. It was established in the town of Ekaterinburg in 1920 by the decree of the head of Soviet revolutionary government Vladimir Lenin. However, the newly-born university underwent a number of changes due to the lack of resources in such circumstances as revolution and civil war. Finally, the university split into two – Ural State University (USU), a smaller university responsible for education in natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, and Ural Polytechnic Institute (UPI), a larger one which was focused on training of engineers in areas such as metallurgy, machine-building, civil engineering and energetics. At the same time, UPI developing several new, cutting-edge educational directions, like nuclear energetics and medicine, organic chemistry and synthesis, telecommunications.

Despite such partition, both universities were connected tightly with each other, as well as with the partners from region’s industrial economy. Because of this Ekaterinburg had become one of the largest university cities of Russia. Since 2008, when a massive reform of Russian university system had been launched, the already tightly connected universities in different cities of the country achieved special federal status and additional funding. Federal universities were established in Rostov-na-Donu, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Archangelsk, Yakutsk, Kaliningrad, Vladivostok and Ekaterinburg. These federal universities are the leaders of Russian educational system. The process of merging of UPI and USU into the united Ural Federal University (UrFU).

The construction of university campus was started in 1940's, and today it occupies a special area within Ekaterinburg (‘Vtuzgorodok’, literally ‘City of Polytechnic University’). Within the 90 years of its history, Ural University had more than 270,000 graduates, many of whom became successful it research, culture or politics. One of the most famous graduates of the university is the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, whose name the university nowadays bears.

The Supervisory Board

In accordance with the Federal Law of 03.11.2006 № 174-FZ "About autonomous institutions" the supervisory board was created in UrFU. It consists of:

• Alexander Beletsky, CEO of "The Corporation"Industrial Ural – Polar Ural", candidate of economic sciences;
• Andrey Kozitsyn, General Director of "UMMC-Holding", doctor of economic sciences;
• Vladimir Miklushevsky, rector of the Far Eastern Federal University, doctor of technical sciences;
• Alexander Misharin, a former governor of the Sverdlovsk Oblast (2009–2012), doctor of technical sciences, candidate of economic sciences;
• Vladimir Ostrovsky, head of the territorial department of the Federal Agency for State Property Management in Sverdlovsk region;
• Dmitry Pumpyansky, president of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, doctor of economic sciences, candidate of technical sciences;
• Eduard Rossel, a member of the Federation Council of Russia, doctor of economic sciences, candidate of technical sciences;
• Valery Charushin, chairman of the Presidium of the Ural Branch of RAS, doctor of chemical sciences, academician of RAS ;
• Arkady Chernetsky, a member of the Federation Council of Federal Assembly of Russian Federation, candidate of economic sciences;
• Tatyana Yumasheva, director of the charitable foundation of the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin;
• Valery Yazev, deputy of State Duma of Federal Assembly of Russia, doctor of economic sciences.

Structure of the university

Institites and departments

The organization structure of Ural Federal University consists of following Institutes and Departments:

• Graduate School of Economics and Management (GSEM)
• Institute of Chemistry and Technology (ICT)
• Institute of Civil Engineering (ICE)
• Institute of Educational Information Technologies (IEIT)
• Institute of Fundamental Education (IFE)
• Institute of Further Education and Vocational Training (IFEVT)
• Institute of Humanities and Arts (IHA)
• Institute of Material Sciences and Metallurgy (IMSM)
• Institute of Mathematics and Computer Sciences (IMCS)
• Institute of Mechanics and Machine Building (IMMB)
• Institute of Military Technical Education and Security (IMTES)
• Institute of Natural Sciences (INS)
• Institute of Physical Education, Sport and Youth Policy (IPESYP)
• Institute of Physics and Technology (PhysTech)
• Institute of Radioelectronics and Information Technologies (IRIT)
• Institute of Social and Political Sciences (ISPS)
• Institute of State Governance and Business (ISGB)
• Ural Power Engineering Institute (UralENIN)
• Department of Distance Education
• Department of Personnel Training
• Department of Instant Education

Institutions of secondary education

• Specialized Educational Scientific Center of UrFU (UrFU Lyceum)

Dmitry Medvedev and Angela Merkel at the Russian-German forum "Petersburg Dialogue" in 2010

Facts and Figures

Ural University is one of Russia’s best research centers, which provides education in the spheres of natural sciences, engineering, economics, social studies, arts and humanities. Since 2008 the university bears the name of Boris Yeltsin – graduate of 1955, who was elected first President of independent Russia in 1991.

The University includes 18 institutes offering over 120 Bachelor’s degree programmes and over 80 Master’s degree programmes. UrFU research facilities include dozens of research centres, innovation infrastructure, the Research Library boasting a collection of over three million books, several museums, and specialised collections. The total number of students at UrFU exceeds 50,000.

UrFU is a public university, its budget consists both of state funding and of students’ fees for education. A federal status, which is assigned only to 8 universities in Russia, is allowing the university to receive extra funding from the state.

The university participates in several international projects funded by governmental organizations and public foundations of Russian Federation, European Union and the US; the university is a member of network universities, like the University of Shanghai Collaboration Organization (SCO), University of CIS and University of the Arctic.

Within a year, the university is attended by more than a hundred international delegations. Among them – ambassadors of the US, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, The Republic of South Africa, Mongolia and the others.

The sport facilities of UrFU are allowing more than 30 teams to train and compete in different tournaments. University is a home of several popular festivals, among them one of the oldest student festivals of Russia, “Vesna UPI” (literally, “The Ural Polytechnic Spring”), which goes back to 1956.

The first international students started to study at the Ural University in 1940es. In 90 years of the university’s history, more than 2 500 specialists from Europe, Asia and Africa graduated from it. Today, there are about 750 international students studying at UrFU.

International Partnership

One more important direction of activity is integration of Ural Federal University to the international research and educational environment. University participates in network educational projects (The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, European Union, UNESCO). It is a key partner in the Ural region for foreign universities, international organizations, foreign companies and corporations. The number of foreign students, post-graduates, researches and lecturers is constantly growing. Сurrently it renders academic programs for foreign students and more than 600 foreign students study in the university. UrFU works on the basis of the framework agreements with the market leaders in Russian and foreign countries (KZ, China etc.)

In 2011 Ural Federal University jointly with Ariel University Center^[10] signed a cooperation agreement with the Skolkovo innovation center known as "Silicon Valley" in Russia. Following this agreement, will be formed the "center of Israel – Scolkovo" (Israel Skolkovo Gateway), to give Israeli companies the opportunity to access capital resources and manpower of Scolkovo.^[11]

The university has an exchange program with Germany, proposed in a meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel.^[12] The program’s focus will include each country’s literature and language in the other’s country (i.e., Russian literature and language in Germany, and vice versa). German officials have also participated in the university’s International Strategic Council of UrFU Competitiveness Enhancement Program.^[13] The university has also partnered with the Baku Slavic University to build an Azerbaijan Studies Center.^[14]

UrFU scientist Victor Grohovsky talks to press during presentation of analysis results of the samples of Chebarkul meteorite

Research

Main directions of scientific research whose results are widely recognized:

• Physics and astronomy: the condensed matter physics, physics of magnetic materials, optics and laser physics, radio physics, electronics, acoustics, quantum theory of solids; spectroscopy of activated crystals, fundamental studies of properties of materials under extreme conditions, the physics of low-temperature and nonideal plasma and its use in power engineering and clean technologies; theoretical and experimental thermal physics, physical gas-kinetics and surface physics, physico-chemical mechanics of heterogeneous and multiphase media, stellar astronomy.

• Power engineering: development of scientific principles of energy policy and mechanisms for its realization under market economy conditions, the fundamental problem of creating a safe and clean energy (including nuclear and fusion energy), non-conventional energy conversion processes, the fundamental problems of energy conservation and fuel efficiency.

• Metallurgy: the development of resource-saving and environmentally friendly processes of complex processing of ores and its wastes, the creation of new metallic materials with the desired properties.

• Сommunication technologies: integrated information and telecommunications networks and systems, the mathematical theory of pattern recognition.

• Mathematics and Mechanics: the theory of control and differential games, theory of algebraic systems and its applications to computer systems, the theory of functions and operators, the fundamental problem of construction of systems of automatic designing, mathematical methods of research of nonlinear control systems and processes, mathematical modeling in medicine.

• Chemistry and Materials Science: Theory of chemical bonding, kinetics and mechanisms of chemical reactions, solid state chemistry, chemistry of radioactive elements, physico-chemistry of polymers, the development of methods for the directed synthesis of complex organic molecules in order to obtain physiologically active substances with a selective effect, the development of the fundamentals of catalysis and the creation of highly efficient and selective heterogeneous, homogeneous and enzymatic catalysts and catalytic systems, the creation of chemical current sources, the creation of structural ceramics and silicate materials with sufficient ductility on the basis of oxides, nitrides, carbides, oxycarbonitrides.

• Biology: population and evolutionary ecology, animal ecology, environmental forecasting and assessment, plant physiology and studies of photosynthesis, industrial botany, ornithology.

• Philosophy and sociology: the history of philosophy, philosophical anthropology, epistemology, aesthetics, social philosophy, sociology of the individual.

• History and Ethnography: Source Studies, Archaeology and Social History of Byzantium, Ural and Siberian Archeology and Ethnography, Siberian and Ural archaeography; social history of the Urals and Siberia, theory and history of international relations.

• Philology: onomastics, dialect lexicology and lexicography, lexical semantics, linguistics and stylistics, folklore and literature of the Urals and Siberia, Russian classical and modern literature, literary stylistics, theory and history of journalism.

• Economics: Regional Economics, competition and institutional aspects of economic growth, foreign investment and international transfer of technology, corporate governance, economic history and the history of economic thought, mathematical methods in economics.

Ratings

UrFU progresses in QS World University Rankings 2011/2012, entering the global Top-500.

Awards and achievements

The "Dedicatied to Young People" short film, which features Ural Federal University graduates giving advices to the current UrFU students, was awarded the ‘Most Creative Corporate Institution Video’ QS-Apple Creative Awards. Thus, UrFU received a title of QS-Apple Creative Idol. The contest was held at November 17, at the 7th QS Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education Conference and Exhibition, in Manila (Philippines), which is organized by the Quacquarelli Symonds company.

References