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Around 250 participants attend EngineersDecide forum in Rostov-on-Don

The forum is dedicated to discussing the role of universities in creating technological products, from scientific ideas and engineering developments to prototypes, startups, and implemented solutions

ROSTOV-ON-DON, July 2. /TASS/. Around 250 participants are taking part in the EngineersDecide forum, which opened at Don State Technical University in Rostov-on-Don, rector Besarion Meskhi told reporters.

The 4th EngineersDecide forum is being held in Rostov-on-Don on July 2-4. It is dedicated to discussing the role of universities in creating technological products, from scientific ideas and engineering developments to prototypes, startups, and implemented solutions. In 2025, the forum brought together more than 200 representatives of universities and companies from 30 Russian cities.

"This is our fourth forum, and each year it grows in scale, in the geography of participants, and in the depth of discussion," Meskhi said. "This year, 250 participants from 40 universities and 70 leading industry organizations are taking part."

He noted that the forum will address issues across the entire engineering education system in the country. According to Meskhi, one of the new formats this year is the Product Focus platform, where student teams from different universities will present their technological developments and receive feedback from experts.

During the opening, Meskhi and rector of the Ural Federal University (Yekaterinburg) Ilya Obabkov signed a cooperation agreement between their institutions, providing for joint development of educational programs and projects.

Advisor to the minister of science and higher education of Russia, scientific director of the Priority 2030 program, and director of the Institute of Public Strategies at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo, Andrey Volkov, noted that modern engineering has reached a fundamentally new level, sitting at the intersection of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, which did not exist 15–20 years ago. He said that the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the ITMO University are already implementing new technologies, including AI and modern methods, which enables training a new generation of engineers.

In Volkov’s view, large companies could benefit significantly from partnerships with universities, as educational institutions are willing to experiment with approaches that industry would not yet test.