In an interview with TASS the rector of the Tuymen State University Valery Falkov talks about the concept of West Siberian interregional research center, the university’s priorities and difficulties in implementing the project.
— The research center was one of the first projects created within the framework of Science national project. How did you come up with the idea?
— The governors of the three regions — Tyumen, Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi — were the masterminds behind the project. The Tuymen State University has supported the project from the start — I recall working on it since May 2018, when the Russian president published a decree on national goals and strategic tasks.
We’ve had research and educational centers since the end of 1990s; as a rule, those were departments within universities. Without putting too much into it, they called knowledge based on research a research center, although any university in fact is knowledge based on scientific research. But Russia has always had its unique features — serious fundamental and applied science as well has always resided at the Academy of Sciences, so that was the reality we had to face.
The current version of the research center, of course, was being developed by a bunch of people: on political level — the governors, on scientific and administrative — the group of researchers and experts from a number of universities, research institutes and enterprises working in our region. In Tyumen, the Academy of Sciences and universities started coordinating on the project dubbed 5-100 (a state program launched in 2012 to support Russian universities). All those factors came together leading to an understanding that they open a window of opportunities for West Siberia — a chance to leave the resources agenda behind and think whether the region can become an attractive place for young talented specialists where they can study, work and develop hi-tech enterprises and where knowledge will become a value and a product.
When setting up the West Siberian interregional center we wanted to try and look what’s beyond the horizon. And then we just started to implement the project. At the same time, one of the main difficulties we faced while establishing the center and the one we are facing now while managing its work is that examples of such centers and their work evaluation were not set up on a federal level. With time, step by step, we accumulated logical ideas that lead us to a better understanding of how the center should operate.
We have a concept of the research center, we’ve spent quite a while developing it, and we are moving forward in accordance with it. There are world-class researchers in the region, but we need to implement scientific results in innovative research and take the following steps: work on mass production and then sell the product. We believe that such research centers combine four kinds of work: scientific, innovative, technological and entrepreneurial. As for distributing the responsibilities in this voluntary partnership, it can vary individually.
Talking to ‘the big guy’
— As far as the center’s industrial element does, did you discuss it with the industry representatives from the very beginning?
— We did indeed, the 5-100 project helped us with this greatly. While implementing it, we managed to develop very close ties with companies. We were ready for that conversation, and our understanding of what part the university needs to play in the region was the main reason for us getting the flagship status.
The Tyumen State University uses established practices — attracting foreign students and teachers along with their adaptation in the university and in the region. Now we have competitive training programs, due to which we are planning in the near future to draw students not only from Central Asia, but also from the Middle East and Latin America. And the companies with which we collaborated on the 5-100 project stage assist us in creating strong joint educational programs.
The Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Mikhail Kotyukov attended the meeting on August 24, 2018. This date can be considered the starting point: political statements were made, organizational design began. On September 6 of the same year Surgut hosted a council of university rectors — representatives of five Tyumen and five Ugra universities decided: yes, we do need an interregional research center.
And then there were questions. First: what does the object of our management look like? You know how hard it was to communicate at the beginning — everyone was waiting for a legal entity to be established. But it is clear that the research center is a voluntary partnership of three types of organizations (scientific, educational and the one from the real sector of the economy), each of them has different values and tasks. It was very difficult for them to learn to communicate with each other without such experience. Here is another question: what are we managing in that object, which mechanisms are we using to do it? And these issues are still not quite fully resolved.
On the one hand, the research center is simple: combining interests and forces to achieve a synergetic effect. But, on the other hand, how to combine these goals in reality, and even more so— how to manage all that, and not in a tough hierarchical model of one organization? For example, businessmen say: on the political level, we stand for the center, but give us the projects. At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that business represented by major industrial companies is self-sufficient and has long learned to do without universities. They do not face a personnel problem — big companies are well-equipped due to agencies and their own HR services.
— I wonder how can the Ministry of Education responsible for the national project even with the help of universities cope with managing commercial structures in industrial companies?
— This is the question about the university being fit to be a research center. At our research center universities are the most important forces behind the project as those who initiate the research projects communicate with the industry. Do you understand how we should reinvent ourselves in order to just talk to companies in a different manner? We need to change the opinions of a big part of the staff as there are those who see no need in the interregional research center. “Why do we need to commercialize knowledge, it is not our job”, they say. Moreover, if we delve deeper into the matter, it turns out that many colleagues detest such approach a part of teaching staff and scientific community suppose that business and education are incompatible. And here we are saying that the main idea is knowledge commercialization and not a scientific article.
— And what does business want from you? What projects does the industry want? They need innovations, don’t they?
— Here’s the rift: the business needs technology here and now, as they have a different mindset — they think about profits, margins, stock market data. Universities and scientific organizations on their own are not big enough to be equals with a major industry giant. They have to merge as they have different competencies, there has to be five, seven, ten academic partners — and such a team needs to be gathered, there has to be a leader who will be chosen as a key figure in the negotiations with this “big guy”.
The research center is of course a very serious step for the companies as well. It is a great social responsibility because it is a long-term game. They have to invest in it, communicate with universities and research institutions to find common ground and create big joint projects instead of rationalizing on a small scale.
Biodiversity and Arctic research
— We talked about relations between science and industry and joints projects. The key goal of the Tyumen State University is to develop such field as biological safety. Why this one exactly? Are you uniquely qualified in it? Do you see a certain prospective?
— Let's see. The starting point of the center is availability of top-notch scientific research. If you do not have those, it makes no sense to continue a conversation with either hi-tech companies or big business. Our goal is the result of a difficult choice. Even being a part of the 5-100 project, we realized we could not move simultaneously in several different directions. And the Tyumen State University, like any classical regional university, had a little in the field of physics, mathematics, and the humanities as well. But priorities should always focus on what’s most important. And we discovered that we have our “own” small field: in acarology, the science of ticks, in which we have a good background historically.
Four years have passed since we entered the "5-100" project, and it was then that we made a serious emphasis on biosafety. Previously, this field of studies at the Tyumen State University was not given any special attention. Now we have made this our priority. For example, we are developing new plant protection system based on the search for effective pesticides of biological origin and on entomophagy as a method against pests.
In general, our logic is quite simple: if physics was the main science in the 20th century, then in the current century biology takes its place, and in a broader sense — the sciences about life. Thus, we pin our hopes on biological studies. Having analyzed the scientific backlogs of the university and great challenges in the Russian Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development, we realized that we have adequate research at our disposal and that we can expand research from acarology to human, plants and animals biosafety. We put our bets on a strong partnership and harness relations with all the iconic biological institutes — the Engelhardt Academic Institute of Molecular Biology, the Orekhovich Scientific Research Institute of Biomedical Chemistry, All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Protection. Due to this partnership, we have launched two master's programs. The first is devoted to the biological protection of plants (in English), provides practice in St. Petersburg and is generally competitive internationally. The second program (with the Orekhovich Scientific Research Institute) concerns mathematical biology and bioinformatics.
— A draft bill on biosafety has been submitted to the Russian government. How much will this law in the current edition narrow down or, on the contrary, expand the field for scientific activity?
— As a lawyer, I think that such a law is definitely needed. The draft of such a law shows that there are looming biological threats for humans, animals and plants. This is mostly a framework, basic law, thus, adjustments are not only possible but necessary. It is important that the law defines such important notions as biological safety, biological risks and threats, formulates a list of these threats. It also stipulates that the rights and duties of both citizens and organizations are important, because earlier this point was not clearly stated. In my opinion, the law in its current version will perform a normal regulatory function.
— But here is another example — the law on genetically modified objects. Scientists complain that it, in fact, did limit work in the relevant field.
— Yes, I have heard from experts that in a sense this is so. But I am not aware of concerns about the biosafety law. Expert community, by all means, should work on this very attentively.
— The Tyumen State University will participate in two projects designated as goals of the West Siberian research center. These are biological and environmental safety in the Arctic and digital transformation of oil and gas industry. Can you indicate the scale of the university’s involvement in these projects?
— If we are considered an undisputed leader in biosafety, in the rest we are one of the key participants. In the Arctic, we intend to take, among other things, the topic of the future of Arctic cities and settlements. This concerns Yamal, first of all, taking into account how the character of the region’s development has changed over half a century. I’m talking about the settlements tied to the work of oil and gas fields, which will sooner or later run out. In a global sense, this is a familiar situation: different states have already faced it at different times and found solutions – also different, by the way. We need to learn from their experience and, without copying it completely, search for our own way and not be afraid to talk about it. Yes, this might take twenty, thirty, even forty years, but the prognostic function is also important for science.
— Is there any hope that the university will lead research on the Arctic ecosystem preservation?
— Indeed, this is the second aspect of our research after socio-humanitarian. The large-scale development of Arctic resources, by definition, cannot exclude anthropogenic impact, and our task is to minimize it. We are particularly interested in the Gulf of Ob where in the conditions of fragile natural landscapes and the traditional life of indigenous peoples a powerful industrial development is underway. In connection with global warming, a change in the composition of permafrost is forecasted there, and the cities and towns set up there were built on the basis of its other characteristics. We need to analyze this change as well.
Without claiming the status of an Arctic research center, we outline the directions of our activity in the region — the study of the socio-humanitarian aspect, biological and environmental safety and permafrost change processes. There’s enough work for everyone. The main thing is to find oneself in this division of scientific and technological labor and be useful to the people who live there.
On the road to commercialization
— As part of the research center, you are swamped with many different obligations. One of them implies an increase in the number of fundamental publications in scientific journals of the first and second quartiles. Do you think this will change the situation for the better?
— The center moves away from hypertrophied attention to scientometrics, known, let’s say, in the framework of the "5-100" project. The university moves towards commercialization, gaining income from the results of intellectual activity. The university must be a source of innovative startups and spin-offs. And this is a big new challenge, as neither universities nor research institutes have such established practices. It will be a serious and very complex work with many failures and fewer stories of success, but this way is the right way and there is no alternative.
Tactically, this requires an understanding. It is very important that society and regulators are aware that the establishment of modern post-Humboldt universities, where business is part of the educational process and some professors have entrepreneurial way of thinking, does not happen in a second. Universities are usually conservative structures, and setting the task of turning their policies upside down in a year is unrealistic.
— Is it correct to talk about the profitability of science in connection with the research center then?
— Applied science, with which we associate the research center, is followed by fundamental science. For the center’s work participants, cooperation with institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences is necessary; they should be invested in as well. In other words, a linear commercial view of science is a bad idea. It is possible and necessary, however, to talk about the profitability of science in the context of the national research centers, it is a good question indeed.
Yes, we do not know how to work with different types of money yet. Indeed, the center is, in a good way, not only state money, for which many get involved in its work. These are also investment funds, which are not granted easily. See for yourself: state money requires a one hundred percent hit on the target, while entrepreneurial activity involves risks, and innovative activity — failure. It is this contradiction that prevents companies from investing in the center’s work. If we manage to convince the companies, their money will follow.
Thus, our today's discovery is that here it is better to pin hopes not on self-sufficient industry giants — they, if they deem it necessary, will come later — but on medium and small ones, as well as on technology companies and technological entrepreneurs. In other words, on those who “here and now” are ready to bring development to mass production and launch it on the market. Such a skill requires time, stable development and consistent work. Exactly the same as with a child who needs help to take the first steps.