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Файл:Теория и практика академического сотрудничества региональных вузов Вьетнама и России. Монография
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achievements as well as engineering developments, especially in chemical
engineering and aircraft industries were of high interest by their colleagues
in Europe and America.
The decay of Soviet Union and the start of modern Russian history
was the kickback for intensive outgoing academic mobility of Russian
engineering scientists and students to North America and Europe [114].
Russian engineering education became opened to the world, however, that
time was the period when engineers and engineering educators actually
realized that Russian engineering education, previously isolated from
leading world trends in this area, required modernization.
Positioning Approach to Modernization of Russian Engineering Education
Russian engineering education has therefore historical orientation on
both East and West but in different aspects of engineering education
activities. Europe and then North America have been the world regions
providing top class engineering researchers and educators to Russia. Their
engineering universities have been the centers for modern engineering
training for Russian students as well as experienced engineers.
It should be emphasized in this respect that insufficient attention in
literature is paid at another outreach of Russian engineering education
activities: Asia-Pacific region. Throughout the Soviet part of the XXth
Century, students from such countries as Vietnam and China received
engineering education degrees at Soviet universities. Vietnam is of
particular interest here, because it has both the community of Russianspeaking graduates of Soviet universities, while the linguistic component is
highly important for successful internationalization [130, 102], as well as
joint long-lasting industrial projects requiring sustainable engineering
education support and the foundation for project-based learning [131].
To summarize historical overview, globalization of Russian
engineering education is characterized by two major directions of outreach:
- North America and Europe: outdoor-oriented global integration,
meaning that these world regions offer modern engineering education
services to Russian engineers. Such services are provided by Western
engineering universities or guest lecturers visiting Russia.
- Asia-Pacific region, represented by China, Vietnam etc.: Russia is
quite competitive in providing engineering education services to these
countries and has good potential there for internationalizing its engineering
education activities as a provider of academic services.
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All the said above allows us to define additional globalization
challenge, which directly relates to engineering education: a positioning
challenge related to the proper position of a national system of engineering
education in the global education market.
As any country has certain peculiarities in its national system of
engineering education, its global outreach will be specific with
internationalization priorities related to different world countries according
to their historical, economic and political background.
Thus, we can form the following approach in this paper. Firstly,
globalization challenges stipulate that modernization of Russian
engineering education may and should be discussed within the framework
of its internationalization: in other words, be global to be modern, if you are
isolated, you will stay behind. Secondly, historical background makes it
possible to properly position Russian engineering education in the world: to
use its strong points to assist modernization and to overcome its weak
points so the modernization process will not be hindered. Thirdly, it is
offered that engineering education modernization challenges can be
successfully faced by specified outreach to the partners in selected world
regions. Each modernization challenge is therefore offered to be best
addressed not by focusing on best practices of a single world region but by
finding solutions through partnerships in different world regions (America,
Europe and Asia).
Germany and Vietnam are selected as the typical representatives of
Russia’s dual outreach to narrow the analysis. The selection criteria were
the following: Germany has good history as a provider of expertise for
Russia in engineering education and science. At the same time, it is an
excellent representative of modern engineering education system. On the
other hand, Vietnam has sustainable demand for Russian engineering
education services and industrial projects. It should be noted that other
countries could also be selected (USA, China, Great Britain etc.), so
Vietnam and Germany is not only one possible selection but an offered pair
of countries to mark the idea of Russia’s dual outreach in
internationalization.
Modernization Challenges and Solutions from Specified Global Outreach
The analysis of Russian national research engineering universities
development shows a number of problems to be dealt with [132]. These
problems are offered to be solved in the context of Russia’s dual orientation
to East and West (with Germany and Vietnam taken as the model
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countries). The related experience of Kazan National Research
Technological University (a representative of the Russian engineering
education system) is discussed to give an idea of existing best practices and
outcomes.
1. Unlike other international universities, curricula at Russian
universities are developed in accordance with the standards developed and
approved by the Ministry of Education and Science. Thus, all study
programs all over the country are typical. However, the national research
status universities received a special right to develop their own curricula
and study plans for master degree programs. This is a unique opportunity to
get in the same trend with international universities, and to use all the
existing capacities of the universities. Unfortunately, the problem is that
national research universities have used very little of this chance, and this is
a gap to be filled.
This modernization challenge can be solved both with the specifics of
East and West: a new focused curricula can be developed to adapt to the
existing top class study programs in Germany and develop modernized dual
degree programs. On the other hand, agreements between Russia and
Vietnam allow attracting many students from Vietnam and offer them
modern engineering education services based on collaboration with
Germany. Kazan National Research Technological University has, for
example, dual degree programs with University of Merseburg in Germany.
It resulted in developing modern curricula in chemical engineering and the
experience is further used for offering modern engineering education
curricula to the Vietnamese students.
2. National research universities have a great potential for applied
research to solve very exactly specified problems of industrial companies.
Unfortunately, due to different circumstances, very little of this potential is
used. The universities have problems in getting in close touch with industry,
and the research they are doing is not always demanded by industry. This is
another problem of Russian research universities.
Western (and especially German) technologies are popular among
Russian industrial companies and applied research in Russian universities
must be high enough to be competitive with German industrial
achievements. This is a long way and the intermediate solution can be the
training engineers for German companies in Russia which is actually done
by KNRTU together with its German partners. On the other hand, Vietnam
and other Asian countries are in high demand for Russian industrial
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solutions and Russian university’s applied research will meet there less
obstacles to be implemented as proved by joint industrial projects between
Russian and Vietnam in chemical and power engineering.
3. The current trend in engineering education is networking, when
curricula are developed in cooperation with partner organizations, and some
of the courses are provided by practitioners. This approach is to be
introduced as a necessary prerequisite for any engineering program, and this
problem has to be solved.
While networking of a Russian university in Germany may be limited
at the first stage to such forms as participation in university consortia and
such foundations as DAAD, Asia (such as Vietnam) will offer broader
networking options. An example is the representative office of KNRTU in
Vietnamese Viet Tri University allowing networking not only with other
universities but as well with industrial companies and even government
agencies.
4. Open access to teaching and learning materials has become a
‘must’ for the majority of international universities. Russian research
universities, unfortunately, are still keeping lots of materials closed even in
the Russian language; access to these materials in English is an important
task to be fulfilled.
This is a trend to follow after European (such as German) universities
to then offer it to Asian (Vietnamese) students.
5. Traditionally, Russian scholars and scientists publish their research
results in the Russian journals in the Russian language. There is a large
network of such journals, some of them are of a very high reputation, and
foreign publishing houses translate them into English. However, this is
more of an exception than a rule, and many scholars who are very
distinguished in this country, are absolutely unknown abroad.
German colleagues of KNRTU scientists allow them to be integrated
into the global scientific community by the mean of joint publications in the
European journals, so this challenge is best solved today by collaboration
with the European and not Asian partners. Russian global outreach in
publications is mostly North America and Europe-oriented. Russian
universities can themselves invite Vietnamese scientists for joint
publications in English.
6. There is a small number of Russian faculty who participate in
global conferences abroad and have a personal membership in international
professional societies. The last years, however, see a significant
improvement of this problem.
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Russian scientists have become desirable guests in European
professional societies. On the other hand, good reputation and strong image
of Russian scientists in Asia (Vietnam) is an underestimated resource for
the modernization of engineering education by providing visiting lectures
and research activities to the Vietnamese pedagogical and research
community. For example, KNRTU has been sending guest lecturers in
polymer engineering and innovative engineering to Vietnam for over a year
already using the resources of its representative office and this activity is
only at the start of gaining its popularity.
7. The international image is an important characteristic of any
university. Unfortunately, Russian universities started to participate in
different international ranking only in the last few years, there is still a long
way to go starting with creating constantly working web-sites of the
universities in foreign languages.
The academic rankings are truly de-regionalized and universal. To
gain the scores for high rankings, however, a university needs to follow
many important indicators, such as reputation, academic mobility,
publications, foreign students etc. Considering Germany and Vietnam as the
selected reference countries, the image of a Russian university among
German scientists is indispensable for gaining high reputation in QS or
THE rankings. Vietnam partners, on the other hand, can make a
contribution to the number of international students and academic mobility
considered in these rankings as quite important.
Summary and Conclusions
Thus, Russian engineering education faces the problems of
modernization stipulated by global challenges. These problems are based on
historical peculiarities of Russian engineering educations and the proposed
solutions can be summarized around the following actions:
1. improving engineering education programs by introducing social
competences and networking opportunities in the curricula;
2. enhancement of the implementation of applied research by
stronger partnership with international industrial companies;
3. developing new forms and methods for collaboration with industry
by using networking mechanisms;
4. providing open access to multilingual teaching materials;
5. focusing on publications in English with international colleagues
for good citations;
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6. providing professional development programs for engineering
faculty both is their professional fields and in education techniques in
countries of good partnership;
7. building an international image of Russian universities.
The demonstrated example of Kazan National Research
Technological University reveals that there is certain progress in solving
these problems by applying sustainable and multidirectional
internationalization strategy.
A positioning approach is a useful tool for finding appropriate
solutions for engineering education modernization problems through
focused internationalization efforts in selected world regions. The
demonstrated examples of Kazan National Research Technological
University collaboration with Germany and Vietnam in engineering
education can be applied to other countries and to solution of other possible
problems of engineering education modernization in a diversified and
therefore more efficient manner.
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PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF ENGINEERS IN GLOBAL
MULTICULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
The modern world is rapidly becoming globalized. The world’s top
engineering companies employ best specialists from all over the world. The
“binding force” for such specialists is their engineering education
background: they form so-called “engineering elite” without boundaries and
cross-country barriers. Different cultural background of engineers in a
global world may, however, form unpredictable barriers to their cooperation
within a transnational company or a university. On the other hand, cultural
differences as a set of various “points of view” and approaches can make a
fruitful contribution to the development of engineering community [22].
Professional growth of engineers is closely linked to the global
challenges mankind faces today. In the XXI century, the mankind is facing
a number of new challenges; their solution will determine the future
progress and even survival. The “global agenda" today includes the
following issues: corruption, poverty, environmental pollution, human
rights, terrorism, armed conflicts, climate change, epidemics,
unemployment, world economy globalization, religion-based conflicts,
human migration. Scientists, politicians and social activists are actively
discussing the so called “global challenges” on the daily agenda of the
United Nations, the clubs. All the road mapping documents of G20 member
states design the future projects with a strong emphasis on the global risks
and instabilities. The world scale problems are also reflected at the regional
scale. Almost all the major challenges can be grouped into the following
categories:
• Healthcare and quality of life – human lifespan, environment
deterioration, especially in the cities, early mortality, poverty and
corruption;
• Safety – a threat of war, ecological disasters and climate change,
religious and ethnic conflicts, terrorism, economic safety related to
modernization of the Russian resource based economy, corruption,
globalization of the world economy, migration of population;
• Resources and their scarcity – demand for new types of energy and
energy efficient materials, pure drinking water, food problems,
intensification of the housing and road construction.
The world leading engineering universities aim at solving the most
urgent global challenges through R&D projects and education declared in
their missions [128].
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Within the research, education and project activities of the
universities, engineering is often considered as a decisive factor in the
roadmap of the XXI century. For example, the annual report of the Institute
of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) places an emphasis on engineering as one
of the most effective instruments for solving global problems through
providing high-tech solutions for healthcare, development of new materials,
safety and the problems of energy and resource scarcity. Engineering in the
constantly renovating appearance will always be of particular importance
for the modern civilization.
The “Building Blocks” of the modern civilization based on
Engineering are:
• Process safety. Modern engineering processes are based on
operational and industrial safety.
• Education, knowledge and professional skills.
• Research and development. Engineering faces the complex
challenges of the modern science.
• Energy. Engineering develops key energy solutions for the
forthcoming decades.
• Water. Engineering provides renewable water resources;
• Food. Engineering can find solutions for sustainable food
generation and distribution.
• Health and welfare. Engineering has been the basic instrument for
producing commodities since the early XX century.
• Economic impact. Engineering contributes over USD 3,000 bln to
the global economy, thus serving as the major economic leverage.
• Social impact. Engineering improves the quality of life all over the
world.
The major contribution to the high level of new universities is made
by the engineering activities, which fill the commercialization “gap”
resulting in the lack of large national companies able to carry out
modernization projects and design innovative production lines.
Graduates of top engineering universities often seek employment by
international corporations and if employed can be sent to Europe, Asia or
Africa. Their further professional growth and promotions are often related
to changing regions and even countries within their employing company
[108].
There is a number of gaps for engineers to be bridged to ensure their
sustainable professional development:
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- the gap between the social demand of the global world for
internationally competitive engineers capable of international scale
professional activities and the engineering university graduates and faculty
who are not ready for intercultural communication;
- the gap between the demand for international recognition of
activities done at national universities and the low presence of regional
engineers in the international databases of grants, publications and
conferences;
- the gap between the demand for development and implementation
of international programs in engineering education to enhance the
competitiveness of the engineering universities and a number of barriers
faced by the faculty (insufficient interdisciplinary links, little experience of
work in professional multilingual environment, low efficiency of personal
international contacts, psychological problems in intercultural
communication);
- the gap between the demand for expanding the international
presence of an engineering university, social order to the universities to get
into the top positions in the international university rankings and the real
positions of engineering universities in the global education market;
- the gap between the demand for international integration of
engineering education, research and industry, the existing successful
international experience of engineering entrepreneurship development and
commercialization of research results and the absence of efficient
mechanisms for adapting and implementing this experience;
- the gap between the demand for studying and adapting the
international rules and regulations for engineering education
internationalization and the absence of mechanisms for efficient
implementation of this experience in engineering universities;
- the gap between the demand for analyzing the historical background
of engineering education internationalization and the need for
comprehensive analysis of this problem;
- the gap between the existing conceptual approaches to engineering
education internationalization in the developed countries, empirical
experience of internationalization in engineering universities, and the
absence of critical description, explanation and analysis of these approaches
with a further developed engineering education model.
These gaps formulate the problem at the heart of the presented
project: what is the structural functional model for the professional growth
of engineers in global multicultural environment? The problem discussed in
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this study is that lifelong learning process, accompanying professional
growth of a modern engineer, can often be a continuous impact of different
cultures.
An important aspect of analysis if that the contribution of a
multicultural environment to the development of engineers can appear at
any stage of their lifelong education pathway: Bachelors’, Master’s or PhD
studies, as well as professional training courses offered by an employing
company. Linguistic, cultural and religious differences exert certain
influence on the learning process, an ability to sustain working and learning
stresses, and the process of decision making. It is important to consider,
however, that engineers get multicultural experience today at earlier stages
of their lifelong learning process due to globalization: students can change
several universities located in different parts of the world to get advanced
engineering education degrees. Another key point for discussion is that on
the other hand, many engineers gain all their degrees in home countries. In
this case, multicultural component becomes predominant in their continued
professional growth when they first face multicultural environment as a part
of their career in a transnational company.
A promising approach offered to reveal the influence of multicultural
environment on continued professional growth of engineers is to select
regions with strong multiculturalism and intensive engineering
infrastructure as the points for analysis. One of such regions in Russia is the
Republic of Tatarstan, incorporating two major nations of Russia –
Russians and Tatars. They have different historical, cultural and religious
background. At the same time, this part of Russia is strongly industrialized
by many national and global companies and has a cluster of engineering
universities. Thus, it is perfect place to reveal best practices in professional
growth of engineers in a multicultural environment.
Kazan National Research Technological University is the only
Russian National Research University which focuses on research and
academic programs in Chemical Engineering and trains skilled
professionals demanded in both the Russian and global markets. KNRTU
implemented a whole set of degree programs: “Chemical Engineering of
Polymer and Composite Materials”, “Chemical Engineering of Energy
Intensive Materials”, “Chemical Engineering of Integrated Processing of
Hydrocarbon Resources”, “Chemical Engineering of Nanotechnologies and
Nanomaterials” and “Chemical Engineering of Energy and Resource
Efficiency in the Production of Advanced Materials”.
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