Good news as Rosatom links African students to study nuclear energy in Russia
15 students and 5 journalists from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa visited Russia at the invitation of global leaders in nuclear energy, Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation.
Three winning teams of the Youth Video Competition; “Atoms Empowering Africa”, which took place this year in Sub-Saharan Africa, visited Russia in November accompanied by journalists from top media houses of the region to study the opportunities offered to get higher education in the field of nuclear energy in the Russian Federation.
African students got a unique opportunity to learn about educational programs available for foreign students, as well as to find out about application and learning processes, along with educational grants.
On top of that, guests visited top Russian universities specializing in nuclear engineering such as National Research Nuclear University MEPhi in Obninsk (Central Russia) and Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) in Tomsk (Siberia, Russia).
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI is the leading Russian university with more than 75 years’ expertise in nuclear engineering. MEPhI is the key partner of Rosatom in the field of training high-qualified nuclear specialists. Nowadays more than 1500 foreign students from 57 countries study there, including over 50 students from sub-Saharan Africa, including such countries as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa and Zambia.
MEPhI provides three academic degrees: Bachelor’s Degree involves such programs as «Nuclear Power Engineering and Thermo Physics», «Nuclear Reactors and Materials», «Nuclear Power Plants: Design, Operation and Engineering», Master’s Degree – «Nuclear Physics and Engineering», «Nuclear Power Engineering and Thermo Physics», Postgraduate Degree – «Nuclear Power Engineering and Technologies».
TPU is one of the leading state universities which specializes in the training of specialists in the nuclear field along with training of professors for universities in Rosatom partner countries. In over 60 years of history, more than 12 000 specialists graduated TPU, including 8 000 ones trained in nuclear engineering and research. TPU is the only Russian university equipped with a nuclear research reactor available for foreign students to perform scientific research on. The IRT-T research reactor has been put into exploitation in July 1967. Now it is used for peaceful atom technologies: nuclear medicine, transmutation neutron alloying, isotope engineering, thorium power engineering.
Currently, TPU offers three academic degrees: Bachelor’s Degree involves such programs as «Nuclear Physics and Engineering», Master’s Degree – «Design, Maintenance and Engineering of Nuclear Power Plants», «Control and Safety of Nuclear Reactor», «Nuclear Medicine», Postgraduate Degree – «Nuclear, Thermal and Renewable Energy and Related Technologies».
The program of African delegation also included the visit to the first Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the world, which was operational from 1954 till 2002, and now is functioning as a memorial complex. It is located in the city of Obninsk (100 km South-West from Moscow) and includes the first nuclear reactor with the capacity of 5MW and the museum of history of nuclear industry. Also, guests visited Tomsk Atomic Energy Information Center (ICAE) set up in 2008 with the purpose of promoting nuclear science and technologies as well as education across the population.
During the hard-driving cultural program guests got acquainted with the history of Russia in line with its gastronomical traditions.
It is important to note that globally, ROSATOM is the only company in the world to offer integrated clean energy solutions across the nuclear supply chain and beyond, including the design, build and operation of nuclear power stations, uranium mining, conversion and enrichment, the supply of nuclear fuel, decommissioning, spent fuel storage and transportation and safe nuclear waste disposal. With seventy years’ continuous experience, the company is the world leader in high-performance solutions for all kinds of nuclear power plants. It is also working in the segments of wind generation, nuclear medicine, energy storage and other.
Headquartered in Moscow, the company brings together over 300 enterprises and organizations and over 250,000 employees.
Statistics show further that Rosatom has the second biggest uranium reserves, has 40% of the world’s enrichment market and is the world’s biggest builder of the latest generation nuclear power stations and US$133 billion 10-years export order book.
