by Academician Vyacheslav MOLODIN, First Deputy Chairman of the RAS SB;

Nikolai DIKANSKY, RAS Corresponding Member, Rector of the Novosibirsk State University;

Mariya CHEREVIKINA, Cand. Sc. (Econ.), Deputy Head of the RAS SB Department for Organization of Research

Experience of development of the RAS SB proved the soundness of three fundamental principles laid in its foundation: interpenetration of different sciences - close interaction with a real economy - deep integration with education. "The third principle, - as noted by the First Chairman of the Branch Academician Mikhail Lavrentyev, - is a harmonious combination of older and young generation of scientists.

The majority of research workers shall be young people - students and postgraduates. There shall be a university, where students could listen to lectures of scientists engaged in advanced research works carried out in academic institutes, and could be taught how to use up-to-date equipment of these institutes".

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STEP ONE

Fifty years ago when academicians Mikhail Lavrentyev, Sergei Khristianovich and Sergei Sobolev founded the Siberian Branch of the USSR AS, a scientific center characterized by a unique combination of fields of knowledge concentrated on its small territory and located far away from Moscow, they realized the impossibility to develop without their "own" university. That is why the decision to found such a scientific institution was of historic importance and had an effect on the future, based on previous experience of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as even Peter I joined the Academy and the University to provide it with national scientists.

Novosibirsk State University (NSU) was opened in 1959. Right from the beginning it headed for research activities, that is why lectures were delivered by academicians, high qualification scientists taught on all faculties. Starting from the third academic year students were engaged in practical studies in laboratories of the institutes, participated in research. That is how like-minded people were brought up: they could carry on work in any field, be it industry, agriculture or education, and grasp new scientific ideas. In a short period of time the NSU became one of the leading institutions preparing highly skilled specialists. At present, training of students and postgraduates improving their qualification under the Master's degree program, is carried out in 33 institutes of the RAS SB Novosibirsk Scientific Center. Two thirds of 1,600 lecturers of the university are its regular staff members.

The last 50 years proved the efficiency of this staff training system. In 16 institutes of the RAS SB about 80 - 90 percent of scientific workers are graduates of the NSU, in 5 - from 50 to 60 percent. Directors of 26 institutes are also NSU graduates. In total, it trained about thirty percent of scientific brainpower of the Branch.

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SCIENCE FROM SCHOOL YEARS

In 1963 the NSU launched a new system of training and selection of young people - a specialized secondary boarding school of physico-mathematical and chemico-biological profile (at the present moment - educational and scientific center), recently named after Academician Lavrentyev. Gifted children - future pupils - were chosen via olympiads all over Siberia and Far East, in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The majority of its teachers are employees of the RAS SB, including doctors and candidates of sciences. As a result, the training system in this school is characterized by unique teaching methods, close to the methods applied at the university, and a department principle of educational process.

These approaches to identify and support gifted young people are still important. Every year different All-Siberia olympiads for pupils, conferences, summer and winter schools, as well as correspondence courses specializing in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, economies are organized there - all this is done with an active participation of the RAS SB employees. They attract over 4,000 pupils from different regions of Siberia and Far East. Even in the difficult 1990s the system did not fail, but kept working and trained new specialists.

Such a successful experience was introduced in other scientific centers of the Siberian Branch too. For example, in the Irkutsk Scientific Center, scientists of the RAS SB institutes are working in a college under Irkutsk State University, in a computer school "Alisa". In Krasnoyarsk young specialists teach children at the space exploration school under the Krasnoyarsk State University. Lecturers of the Yakutsk State University and employees of the Yakutsk Scientific Center of the RAS SB are training children on the base of physico-mathematical forum "Lensky Krai". In Ulan-Ude there is a "Minor Academy of Sciences", formed by the Buryat Scientific Center, which is a center of additional education for pupils of 7 - 11 forms.

Besides, our scientists participate in the development of an elite variant of secondary education as a basis of modern higher education, and in the working out of advanced training programs. Thus, proposed training programs are used as a basis to study economics and programming in general education schools. A special journal for teachers is published with the active participation of NSU lecturers and RAS SB scientists.

NEW INTEGRATION FORMS

One more form of integration: research institutes turn into a base for one or another department or higher institution faculty, providing not only equipment for training process, but also working places for students and postgraduates, encouraging them to participate in research works. Scientists teaching there form a structure of training courses. Appearance of new specialities, strengthening of material base, personnel policy are determined by faculty deans together with the administration of base institutes. That is how one of the most

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significant issues is solved: revelation of a long-range demand in personnel specializing in different fields of science, education, economy.

There are laboratories in many higher education establishments, allowing their employees to carry out research works together with scientists of the Branch within the limits of subjects studied in academic organizations. Today 55 of our institutes serve as a basis for 64 faculties of Siberian higher educational establishments. Moreover, for the last five years the number of such faculties increased almost twofold. Joint laboratories and departments extend the "presence" of the RAS SB in the region. It is of prime importance for small (by the number of institutes) scientific centers and certain cities.

Branch institutes invite students and postgraduates to participate in scientific conferences and workshops. For example, starting from 1998 the RAS SB Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics (Irkutsk) with the participation of a local university, Moscow Physicotechnical Institute, physical faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow State University and under assistance of the Russian Fund of Fundamental Research have been carrying out the International Baikal Youth Workshop on Fundamental Physics, where leading national and foreign scientists deliver surveys and senior students present their original reports. For many students it is the first public presentation of their work.

Experience of cooperation with base faculties, joint departments, laboratories made it possible to successfully use program forms of integration of science and higher education. For example, within the framework of Russian-American Program "Fundamental Research and Higher Education" (American Fund of Civil Research and Development), Krasnoyarsk State University has founded a scientific-educational center "Yenisei", that implements a project called "Fundamentals of Ecologization of Education and Technologies". It is managed by leading specialists of the RAS SB Institute of Biophysics and Chemistry and RAS SB Institute of Chemical Engineering.

Within the limits of the federal special program "Integration" in 2000 on the base of several NSU faculties and RAS SB institutes there was established a scientific-educational center "Molecular Design and Environmentally Safe Technologies", supported by the American Fund of the MacArthurs (1.5 mln USD for 2000 - 2005). Specialists of this center are working to solve interdisciplinary scientific problems. Offered courses of lectures (supramolecular chemistry, molecular design of catalysts, 21st century materials, design of molecular magnetics, new trends in bioorganic chemistry) and laboratory works are aimed to enable students to think wide, to give them up-to-date knowledge. This center holds scientific seminars and postgraduate courses for teachers, delivers lectures in summer and winter schools for schoolchildren, carries out international scientific conferences for students, and maintains Internet sites with educational materials.

SUPEREQUIPMENT FOR STUDENTS

Foundation of future knowledge may be laid only via use of modern equipment. Without it, enthusiasm of young specialists will not take real shape: no new generation scientists, highly skilled engineers able to make an innovative technological breakthrough will appear. That is why RAS SB organizations offer its higher education establishments to use different instruments and devices of its 16 multi-access centers. For example, on the base of one of such centers - Baikal Analytic Center, Limnological Institute together with the chemical faculty of the Irkutsk State University created a scientific-educational group, where students try to master the unique equipment (chromato-mass-spectrometer "Agilent" GC 6890, transmission-type electron microscope LEO 906, scanning microscope Philips SEM 525M, mass-spectrometer with plasma ionization ICP-MS Plasma-Quad, etc.).

Students of the NSU and Novosibirsk Pedagogical University, specializing in organic chemistry, regularly visit the RAS SB Chemical Service Center. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer AC-200 and electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer ESP-300 D installed there help them write course papers and diploma works.

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Multiprocessor computer M BC-1000/32 installed at the multi-access Center "RAS SB Siberian Supercomputer Center" is used to train students of the NSU faculty of mechanico-mathematical and informational technologies. In the Siberian Center of Synchrotron Emission under the Institute of Nuclear Physics named after G. Budker work about 30 NSU students and undergraduates of the Novosibirsk Technical University.

Regional RAS SB multi-access center in Krasnoyarsk has concluded cooperation contracts with the largest higher educational establishments to use the unique equipment. Postgraduates, future holders of master's degree and students are coping with the latest research methods using pulsed spectrometer of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), high-resolution NMR Fourier spectrometer, chromatographic analyzer, atomic absorption spectrophotometer, etc.

It is worth paying special attention to the development of a unified information space of scientific centers on the base of Internet, RAS SB State Public Scientific-Technical Library, which gives access to literary and informational sources, including full text articles of leading Russian and international journals.

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RAS SB - COMPANIES - HIGHER EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS

In recent years innovation companies have revealed interest to cooperation with our Branch and higher educational establishments to attract students to produce science-intensive products on the base of RAS SB research efforts, and train highly skilled specialists-masters of innovation technologies.

The example of such cooperation - interaction of the Institute of Computer Simulation, State Technical University and Scientific-Production Enterprise "SibERA", specializing in the field of industrial safety of hazardous works in Krasnoyarsk. The scientific-technical potential of this enterprise is used to deliver lectures, carry out laboratory studies, production practice and prepare diploma works and dissertations.

On the base of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center (NSU), Institute of Catalysis named after G. Boreskov with participation of the Limnological Institute and EcoNova Company there has been established a scientific-educational and methodological center "Chromatography". Its main task is to train and retrain specialists in analytical chemistry able to apply modern analysis methods. As a result, the university trains students free of charge attracting to the educational process RAS SB employees and using free equipment. The company, producing this equipment, strengthens its position on the market due to improvement of its products in the course of tests carried out in the center and, at the same time, participates in the training of specialists.

Creation of textbooks is an important form of cooperation of science and education; every year specialists of our Branch publish 15 - 30 textbooks. We would like to particularly note the work of Siberian mathematicians who offered a unique series of "multilevel" textbooks for secondary school and teachers' manuals. They give a common comprehensive basis for ordinary and advanced students-modern mathematical concepts. The teacher may vary a level of complexity depending on abilities of the student, which actually means an individual educational approach. The most intricate methodological work was made possible by a wide experience gained at the physico-mathematical school (the authors of these textbooks were awarded a prize of the Russian Federation President in the field of education in 2000).

RAS SB scientists play a significant role in publishing textbooks in languages of peoples of Siberia. Today these languages are studied at schools on the basis of ABCs and grammar books developed by our philologists.

Active participation of the RAS SB in the educational process results in high skills of graduates, which ensures constant inflow of specialists into academic, branch and college science, and improves qualification of top managers in other branches of the economy.