Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko Assessed NSU World-Class Campus Construction

On August 22, Deputy Prime Minister RF Dmitry Chernyshenko attended the X International Forum for Technological Development, “Technoprom 2023”. His program included a site visit and update on the progress of NSU’s world-class campus fr om Airat Gatiyatov, Russian Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, Andrey Travnikov, Governor Novosibirsk Region, and NSU representatives including Mikhail Fedoruk, NSU Rector and Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Lyudmila Nekrasova, Director NSU Specialized Educational and Scientific Center (SESC). This construction is supported by the National Science and Universities Project’s “Creating a Network of Modern Campuses” Program.

First Stage of Construction: SESC Buildings and Student Dormitories

Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshenko visited the future classroom building for talented schoolchildren from all over Russia. Conceptually, the building has two components, classrooms and laboratories. The classroom wing will be equipped with multimedia and other modern equipment for educational lectures and seminars.

NSU SESC Director Nekrasova described the concept,

Currently, NSU SESC has one chemistry laboratory, one biology laboratory, and two physics laboratories. They are all booked until late at night because every pupil must do a project. The infrastructure was not sufficient to support the student work load. In the new buildings, we will provide an opportunity for an individual scientific trajectory by creating modern laboratories for a variety of disciplines such as engineering, IT, chemistry, physics, and biology that the pupils will be able to use more freely. We have organized these laboratories in one wing of the academic building so that each floor corresponds to a discipline. The second floor is mathematics and IT, the third is biology, the fourth is chemistry, and the fifth is physics. The first floor is reserved for engineering laboratories to explore practical applications. Fume hoods are installed throughout the laboratories since they are not only necessary for chemists and biologists, but physicists who are studying materials science.

Chernyshenko noted the technological design of the building, highlighting not only its aesthetic component, but the thoughtfulness of the concept in terms of durability, structural strength, and other properties important for a modern educational building. Governor Travnikov emphasized that the materials used to decorate the interior spaces were produced in the Novosibirsk region.

The delegation paid special attention to the transformable assembly hall and planetarium in the recreational center that will play a socially significant role not only for University and SESC students and staff, but for residents of Akademgorodok and the entire Region. For example, SESC plans to open the planetarium to children from Berdsk, Koltsovo, and remote areas of the Novosibirsk region. This will make operations easier for the Novosibirsk Planetarium. The Regional Administration is supportive of this because, as the Governor explained, after Anna Kikina’s space flight she visited NSU and answered questions about life on the space station from Novosibirsk residents. Subsequently, the demand for astronomy among schoolchildren has increased and an additional site with the most modern equipment (for example, for 4K modeling of celestial phenomena) will help provide training to interested children and attract them to science.

The Deputy Prime Minister also visited one of the student dormitories under construction. These accommodations provide two and three bed blocks. For every eight blocks on the floor, there is a separate kitchen/living room wh ere students can gather for communication, household chores, and study. On the ground floor of each dormitory there is a 150 m2 open public space for recreation.

The first stage of the SESC construction is funded by a private donor.

Second Stage of Construction: Classrooms, Scientific and Laboratory buildings

After inspecting the first stage facilities, Chernyshenko evaluated the progress of the second stage of construction. This includes the classroom building, research center, and the Institute of Medicine and Psychology Educational and Scientific Center. Natalya Zarubina, Director of the Department for Construction of Unique Objects at the Public Company “Single Customer”, described the plans and dates when the buildings will become operational.

 Zarubina explained,

 This year we plan to complete the construction of the classroom building, close the thermal circuit, begin internal engineering work, and the installation of partitions. The best-case scenario, we will complete the facility in August so that students will begin to study there on September 1, 2024. As for the research building and the Institute of Medicine and Psychology Educational and Scientific Center, we are completing the second floor and will start working on the upper floors. Now that we are moving at a faster pace, we hope to complete construction by 2024 and to put these facilities into operation by 2025

 Deputy Minister Gatiyatov emphasized that the construction of the world-class NSU campus is under the special control of the Ministry and that the positive dynamics of the pace of construction and the results of joint work with representatives of “Single Customer”, Novosibirsk Regional Administration and NSU is notable.

NSU Rector Mikhail Fedoruk said that the construction of the classroom building will meet the University’s need for additional large classrooms, a separate infrastructure for the NSU scientific library, which currently has almost a million books, and provide comfortable conditions for student project work. The new scientific and laboratory buildings will eliminate the shortage of specialized and state-of-the-art spaces for chemists, biologists, doctors, and IT students, as well as accommodate the increasing enrollment in the relevant specialties at all levels of higher education. Fedoruk explained, “There are not enough large classrooms for lectures and interdisciplinary classes In the academic building that was built in 2015. The University has grown by 2-2.5 thousand students and the available space does not meet the needs of our students”.