Tomsk Polytechnic University National Research Institute
The Tomsk Polytechnic University, founded in 1896, is the oldest engineering university in Russia’s Asian part. Sergei Vitte and Dmitry Mendeleyev made a significant contribution to the establishment of the university. Over 20 institutions and research centres have been opened as part of the Polytechnic University. These include research institutes in Barnaul, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Chita, Khabarovsk and in other cities.
The university includes eight institutes, 10 faculties, 100 departments, three research institutes, 17 research and educational centres and 68 research laboratories. The university has four branches and 14 bureaus in Russia and abroad.
The university comprises 22,500 students, including 600 people from 33 countries, 1,700 professors, with 290 of them having doctoral degrees and 1,050 candidate degrees, 26 Merited Scientists and Engineers, 10 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 125 members of public and professional academies, 21 winners of various awards, including international recognitions, two winners of the Presidential Award and 11 winners of other governmental awards.
Fifty small innovation companies use the university’s development facilities. As part of its involvement in the real economy, the university has signed strategic partnership agreements with 252 companies, such as Gazprom, Rosneft, Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems, Siberian Chemical Plant and others.
In 2007, the university won a competition for innovative education programs as part of the Education National Project. The program was designed to prepare specialists, conduct world class research on scientific priorities, technology and equipment by establishing so-called Centres of Excellence. The university currently has 10 such centres. The realisation of the Innovative Educational Project brought the university the status of national research institute in 2009.
Among the university’s priority areas of activity are the rational use of natural resources and advanced processing, traditional and nuclear energy, alternative energy sources, beam-plasma technology for producing materials with certain qualities, and information and telecommunications systems for monitoring and management.
Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences Pyotr Chubik is the rector of the university.
Tomsk State University
Tomsk State University, founded in 1878 by Alexander II, is the first institution of higher learning in Russia’s Asian part.
The university was established and developed as a national centre for education, science, enlightenment and culture, whose objective was to educate the elite of Siberia and the Far East. The history of Tomsk University is a chronicle of names and people’s destinies. Dmitry Mendeleyev, curator of the Western Siberian Educational District professor Vasily Florinsky, politician Grigory Potanin, scholar and political writer Nikolai Yadrintsev, famous philanthropists Alexander Sibiryakov, Pavel Demidov, Zakhary Tsibulsky, and Count Alexander Stroganov, president of the Academy of Sciences Fyodor Litke all contributed to the establishment of the university.
Over 100,000 specialists have graduated from Tomsk State University. Among its students and employees are about 100 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and academies of sciences of the CIS states, over 250 winners of State and the Lenin prizes and two Nobel Prize winners.
Tomsk University is currently the largest institution of higher learning in Russia’s east. The university offers 114 majors, 86 for graduate students and 37 for doctoral candidates. It includes 24 faculties and institutes, 25 thesis committees, 149 departments, three research institutes, 11 museums, a botanical garden, scientific library with 4 million books, the Centre for High-Performance Technology and the Tomsk Telecom Portal. The university has four branches and 47 centres of pre-university preparation in Siberia and Kazakhstan.
Over 350 Doctors of Sciences and 900 PhDs work at the university, including 16 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Education Academy and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences; 23,000 students, 800 postgraduates and doctoral candidates study at the university.
Tomsk State University ranks first in Russia in terms of the number of awards received in national scientific contests. Over the past five years, the university’s students and professors have received 20 medals from the Russian Academy of Sciences; over 500 people received certificates from the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
The university continues to develop and is ranked fourth in official ratings by the Ministry of Education and Science after Moscow State University, the Bauman Moscow State Technical University and the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. Tomsk University is one of Russia’s four institutions of higher learning which are included in the TOP 500 QS World University Rankings 2011/12.
Presidential Decree No. 30 of January 15, 1998 includes the university in the State Code for sites of Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of Russia.
Professor and Doctor of Physics and Mathematical Sciences Georgy Maier has been the university’s rector since 1995.