TOMSK, Nov 10 – RIA Tomsk. The Governor of the Tomsk region Sergey Zhvachkin, who heads the Supervisory Board of Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU), has proposed to the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education to appoint Dmitry Sednev, who has been acting rector since July, as TPU Rector, the regional administration's press service said on Wednesday.
Earlier it was reported, that the rectorial powers of Petr Chubik, who headed TPU for more than 10 years, expired at the end of 2018, but he headed the university for another year as acting rector. At the end of 2019, Andrey Yakovlev was appointed as acting rector. At the beginning of July 2021, 32-year-old Dmitry Sednev, former head of the TPU School of Non-Destructive Testing, became the new acting rector.
"In my opinion, Sednev has only one obvious flaw - his youth. But, believe me, this flaw passes quickly. I propose to support the candidacy of Dmitry Sednev for the position of Rector of the National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University and I expect that the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation will support our proposal," Zhvachkin is quoted in the statement.
According to the head of the region, he has been observing Sednev's work as acting rector of TPU. In a matter of weeks, Sednev and his team prepared an application for TPU to participate in the competition of the new federal program Priority 2030. As a result, TPU was included in the first group of the Research Leadership track with the maximum grant amount.
© РИА Томск. Павел Стефанский
The governor also noted TPU's important initiative to transform domestic engineering education. The modern model for training technical specialists was also supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
Sednev's third success, according to Zhvachkin, was that the university was able to formalize its know-how in the field of hydrogen technology, and this project also received federal support. "Hydrogen energy is already at the peak of relevance on a global scale, and our university has every chance to become one of the leading research centers in the field of hydrogen technologies," the head of the region added.
According to the press service of the regional administration, an attestation commission of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation is expected to consider Dmitry Sednev's candidacy in December.