The meeting of the II International Council of Rectors in mining engineering education was held at the Mining University

On 22nd September 2017 a meeting of the international council of rectors in mining engineering education was held the Mining University. Among the participants there were 120 university leaders from over 60 countries.

USTU’s rector Nikolay Tskhadaya participated as a speaker during the discussion about “Creating a unified educational space as a mechanism for increasing the accessibility, quality and attractiveness of mining engineering education" under the topic "The main activities of the International Competence Center in Mining Education". The rectors of the leading world universities discussed the following important topics within the framework of the panel discussion: joint curriculum and programs as a condition for global international mobility of students, postgraduates, professors and scientists; requirements for minimum "threshold" knowledge, skills and experience, assessment of the quality of student preparation; increase in accessibility and attractiveness of mining engineering education; the formation of a system of continuous, accessible education in modern society as an important factor in socio-economic sustainability and other issues devoted to increasing the accessibility and attractiveness of mining engineering education were also discussed.

Ukhta University, in the course of the meeting of the Council, suggested an initiative on how to increase the attractiveness and popularization of mining education in the global information space. They proposed, as an effective mechanism for achieving this goal, an international information project of industry media cooperation between universities and companies of the mineral-raw materials complex "UTime News" (http://utimenews.org/), which has already been successfully implemented at some universities in the Russian Federation. The project brings together the media resources of mineral-raw and oil-and-gas universities, scientific organizations, companies and organizations of Russia, and in the future it is designed to attract different countries of the world. The project "UTime News" was included in the Action Plan of the Government of the Russian Federation on the popularization of workers and engineering professions, approved by the decree of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D. A. Medvedev No. 366-r dated 5th March, 2015 (paragraph 44).

Participants of the II International Council of University Rectors with a mining profile of education unanimously adopted the final resolution,which reflects the priority areas of work of the International Competence Center in Mining Education under the auspices of UNESCO. The center will be established in St. Petersburg.

Among the main tasks the solution, which will become a priority for the Competence Center, the leaders of the world's leading mining technical universities have included the formation of a single educational space to ensure global mobility of students, as well as the creation of a system of international professional certification and certification of engineers. In addition, due to joint activity, the rectors plan to increase the efficiency of the scientific research system demanded by the mineral and raw materials companies.

The need to form a structure that will act as a platform for creating innovations and their commercialization has become the main topic of the panel discussion "International Competence Center as a laboratory of ideas in the development and implementation of innovative resource-saving and energy-efficient technologies". Delegates emphasized that the speed of modernization of the extractive industry is constantly increasing. And projects that until recently seemed unattainable have now been successfully implemented.

This leads to the conclusion that in the mining industry and related industries there are global changes leading to a decrease in the demand for many professions or their serious transformations. As of now, conditions have been created for the withdrawal of people from the ground and the introduction of deserted technologies for mining. There are so-called "green" mines, where the human task is only the management of robotic equipment using a computer.