THE BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY CELEBRATED ITS 100TH ANNIVERSARY ON OCTOBER 30. THIS EVENT IS INCLUDED IN THE UNESCO MEMORABLE DATES LIST, WHICH CONFIRMS THE SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION OF THE BELARUSIAN UNIVERSITY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF WORLD EDUCATION AND SCIENCE.
The development of the intellectual core of Belarus is largely determined by the activities of BSU. In far 1921, it was the only university that had to form a university system almost from scratch and lay a scientific foundation. The best administrators and teachers of that time from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and a number of European countries were involved in this process.
A huge role in solving organizational issues belonged to the first rector of BSU, the famous historian, professor of Moscow State University Vladimir Picheta. The development of the Belarusian State University, as well as of several Belarusian universities later, took place under his direct guidance.
The history of many local universities begins with the history of the Belarusian State University. BSU became the base for the now-famous Belarusian State Medical University, Belarusian State Economic University, and others. The BSU library formed the basis for the National Library of Belarus. By the active involvement of BSU scientists, the Academy of Sciences and dozens of authoritative scientific schools in the field of natural and humanitarian sciences began their activities.
For almost a century, BSU has trained more than 185,000 specialists, 4700 candidates of sciences, 700 doctors of sciences, more than 15,000 foreign specialists, masters and PhD students. Among the graduates are well-known scientists, academicians, professors, laureates of state prizes of the USSR, BSSR and the Republic of Belarus, top managers of large companies. National poets, honored figures, and Olympic medalists graduated from BSU.
Modern BSU is a powerful educational, scientific and industrial complex, which includes 20 faculties and institutions, seven educational establishments, six research institutes, 42 research laboratories, eight innovative manufacturing enterprises, 177 departments, three training and experimental stations, six museums and one science and technology park. The fund of BSU fundamental library has about 2 million volumes of national and foreign literature.
BSU staff consists of more than 7000 employees. The educational process is provided by over 3500 teachers, of whom there are eight academicians, 11 corresponding members of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, more than 210 doctors of sciences and professors, over 980 candidates of sciences. The number of students is about 30,000 bachelor, master, PhD and doctoral students.
BSU today is an innovative university with advanced technologies and teaching methods. It constitutes the quality of education, scientific research, attractiveness for each student, taking into account his personally significant preferences. Students can find their personal fulfillment, reveal themselves, their intellectual and creative potential. Over the past three years, the university has been actively using technologies and teaching methods of a heuristic, creative nature. They allow to form a unique personality, develop students' creativity, reveal themselves and the world around them.
Today, specialists having mental flexibility, mobility and the ability to offer non-standard solutions are in demand. Therefore, it is necessary to create conditions for students, where they could evaluate themselves, see their strengths, feel the boundaries of their not knowing. During the training, students do not need to copy blindly the ready-made material. They reveal their intellectual and creative potential through the creation of their educational product, which will always differ from the results of others. This is not only the materialized result of the completed assignment in the form of answers to the test or a written abstract. These are internal changes that occur due to one's search for a solution, since there are no correct answers in advance in heuristic learning. Students find themselves in an environment of uncertainty. By looking at the problem from different angles, they leave the patterns and habitual monologue actions that are replaced by dialogue and go beyond their borders. Such training allows students to become sought-after specialists who can change depending on the challenges of our times.
BSU main achievement of the century is the rise of higher education in Belarus to a qualitatively new level. There's a lot of evidence here. Every third student from the republican databank of gifted youth studies at BSU, every 5th
candidate and 6th doctoral thesis in Belarus were defended by our scientists. By the way, over the past five years, the university has increased the number of doctoral theses by 30 percent. Every year, BSU scientists are among the most cited authors in the field of natural science and humanities and publish about 800 articles in the world most authoritative journals. The university is the leader in Belarus in terms of the number of published scientific papers in international journals of the Web of Science database.
BSU is among the top 1 percent of universities worldwide according to world rankings. It is represented in ten global and seven subject ones, but the benchmark lies on the "The Big Three". BSU ranks 295th in QS, 367th – in US News. It is the only Belarusian university in the subject Shanghai ranking and is placed in the 201–300 range. The electronic library of BSU is one of the three best university repositories in the world.
International activities play an important role in the development strategy of the university. Internationalization is considered an effective tool for increasing the competitiveness of the university in the national and international scientific and educational space. BSU is the leader in Belarus in teaching foreigners. There are over 4000 foreign students from 62 countries, which is the highest figure in the country.
BSU cooperates with 59 countries in the framework of over 570 agreements with foreign universities, scientific and commercial organizations. Joint educational programs and structures have been opened with partner universities. 12 joint educational programs have been already implemented (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Hochschule Mittweida (University of Applied Sciences), Dalian Polytechnic University). Since 2017, the training has been conducted at the Joint Chinese-Belarusian Institute DPU – BSU, since 2019 – at the Joint Belarusian-Chinese Institute BSU – DPU.
BSU holds a special place in the system of scientific organizations of Belarus. Scientific research at BSU is inextricably connected with the educational process, which allows generating new knowledge and training scientific workers of higher qualifications. Currently, the priority and most developed industries at BSU are pharmaceuticals, veterinary medicine, chemistry, biology, radio electronics. Much attention is paid to the development of space research. By the way, BSU was the first and so far the only university in the education system of Belarus, where students and employees of the Faculty of Radiophysics and Computer Technologies created a nanosatellite BSUSat-1. It was successfully launched on October 29, 2018. Currently, the second BSUSat-2 has been created at BSU. Its launch will be timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of BSU and is scheduled for 2022.
BSU is the lead organization, which participates in the implementation of numerous governmental programs, scientific research, state scientific and technical programs, Union State programs, etc.
Over the past three years, the subdivisions of the BSU complex have produced more than 100 types of science-intensive products, including for export.
BSU annually becomes the winner of the International Exhibition-Congress "High Technologies. Innovation. Investments" (HI-TECH). Throughout the history of participation, the university has won five special prizes, 77 gold and 87 silver medals, 32 diplomas.
The developments of BSU scientists are applied in a wide variety of industries – from space technologies to agriculture. The team of the Research Institute of Nuclear Problems of the Belarusian State University is the only team from the CIS that entered the largest European megaproject GRAPHENE FLAGSHIP. As part of the CMS and ATLAS collaborations, BSU scientists made an important contribution to the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. 15 employees of the Research Institute of Nuclear Problems of the Belarusian State University are co-authors of publications on the new particle discovery.
Export geography in 2016–2020 embraced 26 countries, including Bulgaria, Brazil, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, Turkmenistan, Finland, USA, Germany, China, Austria, etc. The range of supplied products included scientific equipment, medical devices, new substances and materials, advanced technologies, services in the field of science.
Five educational, scientific and industrial clusters are functioning at faculties, departments and enterprises of BSU. All of them contribute to the development of innovative activities, the involvement of bachelor, master and PhD students, young specialists in scientific, innovative and commercial activities.
More than eight thousand students are involved in research work, which is 42.5 percent of the total number of full-time students. Students also participate in the implementation of scientific programs and projects. The BSU complex includes 62 student research laboratories and 144 science clubs and associations.
BSU provides all the conditions to reveal students' scientific and creative potential. Unitehprom BSU, Educational and Research-Production Republican Unitary Enterprise, has been operating for more than 20 years, enabling both students and scientists to implement their business initiatives and scientific ideas. The university hosts 133 creative clubs and holds more than 600 cultural events annually. 70 BSU students are members of the Republic of Belarus national teams and clubs in 20 sports. A women's basketball team "BSU-Tsmoki" has been created.
BSU today is a corporation of professionals, authority scientists and outstanding teachers. I really hope that over succeeding centuries the BSU history will be created by decent people, for whom the Belarusian State University will always remain a matter of value and pride, a guide to professional life. And we, its contemporaries, will always honor our alma mater with warmth and gratitude!
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