More and more countries bet on innovations. Something new cannot appear with the help of a magic wand. First of all, any innovation needs an author and then some other resources. Where can they be found? The author can be found at a university.
Entrepreneurial University or “University 3.0”
Stanford University in the USA is a perfect example of an entrepreneurial university. Its graduates that created Google, Yahoo!, Hewlett-Packard, provide hundreds of thousands of job opportunities and generate an income of billions of dollars every year. It became possible for the university has developed a special entrepreneurial culture and an advanced infrastructure to support its own entrepreneurial initiatives.
Entrepreneurial universities in Belarus and Russia are called “Universities 3.0”. It means that such universities are both educational institutions and research centres that have the infrastructure for entrepreneurship training and the commercialization of intellectual activity.
“University 3.0 trains specialists taking into account three components”, explains Yury Golubev, Vice-Rector for Science of Polotsk State University. “Traditionally, the first component is education in a broad sense. Training of a specialist is the main goal of a “University 1.0”. The second component is science. The university which combines education and science is a “University 2.0”. Until recently, it was considered a role-model in education. Now the third component appeared – innovativeness. “Innovativeness” includes development of innovative thinking, and implementation of innovative approaches into all spheres of the university life. This allows to form an environment for the university to work in close cooperation with external structures and contribute to the development of the region”.
PSU as part of the “University 3.0” project
Polotsk State University is the first university in Vitebsk Region that supported the concept of the “University 3.0” project. There are already plenty of opportunities for the integration of educational, scientific and entrepreneurial activities.
PSU has its own technology park where junior scientists can implement the results of their research. In 2017, the university, “Naftan” and Novopolotsk City Executive Committee created a petrochemical cluster, which helped to speed up the innovative process in the region. Besides, there is a Startup-School at PSU that has been created in partnership with the Society for Innovative Business Support.
And there is much more that Polotsk State University is doing and is planning to do in order to become a true entrepreneurial university.
«It is planned to introduce courses that will be basic for all specialties”, Yury G. adds. “People can lack the ability to think creatively, therefore the courses will be aimed at developing creative thinking in order to move forward along the innovative path. There will also be special courses focused on specific directions of the university. PSU Startup-School will be further developed as well”.
PSU and “NEW POLOTSK” fund
The activity of the “NEW POLOTSK” local fund, that supports education, science and entrepreneurship, complies with the university 3.0 model that combines education, science and entrepreneurship. The fund employees organize and support the events aimed at integrating research and education into business.
The university and the local fund have already held some events that promote the “University 3.0” concept development and the students’ and schoolchildren’s interest in the innovations. The latest one is the innovative ideas contest “Khochu v 3.0” (I want to enter 3.0). Any student of secondary, secondary professional, career and technical or higher education could take part in it. The contest started on February 25th of 2020 and finished on May 23rd. The winner is the project “OnLine Duel” designed by Valentin Savin, a 2nd-year student of the Faculty of Information Technologies of Polotsk State University. The project idea is to provide an opportunity to rent robots for online fights.
Anna Nanos
Photos: www.psu.by