Russian Education and Science Minister Falkov: Russia and China Strengthen Ties in Science and Education
Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov was in China on a working visit from August 21 to 26. The busy program included visits to universities, research centers, the joint MSU-BIT university in Shenzhen, as well as the Chinese experimental superconducting tokamak EAST in Hefei.
During the visit, negotiations were held with the Minister of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China Yin Hejun and the Minister of Education of the People's Republic of China Huai Jinpeng. The working trip allowed the delegation to get acquainted with China's advanced research infrastructure and discuss the development of closer partnerships in the field of higher education.
— How do you assess the current level of scientific and educational cooperation between Russia and China? Do Russia and China have a joint strategy for developing scientific and technical partnership?
— Russian-Chinese scientific and technological cooperation is developing at a good pace, corresponding to the high level of strategic partnership between our countries. Very good relations are developing in the field of education and science — between ministries, between universities, scientific organizations, teams and, finally, between specific scientists, teachers — figuratively speaking, we are now working, strengthening or establishing ties on all floors of this large building.
I had two goals in mind during this visit to China. The first was to learn about the experience of creating and subsequently using effectively an advanced research infrastructure of the "megascience" class, which allows us to study the foundations of the universe, create new materials with specified properties, and test new breakthrough technologies. In this sense, China, like Russia, is one of the few countries that is building such scientific installations. Therefore, we are actively working to use this scientific infrastructure together, in the interests of both countries.
In particular, in Hefei, at the Institute of Plasma Physics, we assessed the progress of the new-generation tokamak being created, looked at the existing one - the world's first Chinese experimental superconducting tokamak (EAST). This installation has set world records for plasma retention several times - almost 18 minutes. This is a very good result. Also in Beijing, we got acquainted with the fourth-generation synchrotron, which is located in the suburbs. This is a high-energy photon source HEPS. The progress of this project is interesting to us for one simple reason - in Russia, a photon source with similar characteristics - the Center for Shared Use "Siberian Ring Photon Source" (SKIF), is currently being created in the science city of Koltsovo (Novosibirsk Region). Both the Russian and Chinese projects are scheduled for commissioning at about the same time, this year. Each of the installations has its own unique characteristics and allows scientists to conduct various unique studies. In this regard, we discussed with colleagues from the Institute of High Energy Physics the possibility of cooperation between scientists from the two countries for joint work on these installations.
The second goal is to develop closer partnerships in higher education. The flagship from Russia here is Lomonosov Moscow State University and their joint university with the Beijing Institute of Technology, which operates in Shenzhen. We also managed to visit there during this working trip. It is pleasant to note that the university has already reached its design capacity - almost 5 thousand students study there, and the entire infrastructure is fully utilized. A new major stage in the development of the joint university is beginning - this includes expansion in terms of infrastructure, an increase in the number of students, and increased research activities.
As for the joint strategy, in recent years we have been guided by the Roadmap for Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation until 2025. It sets out such priorities as aviation and astronautics, energy storage systems and low-carbon technologies, biotechnology and medicine. Of course, science has made great strides in recent years. Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in many areas of knowledge – during my visit, I had the opportunity to see for myself how this technology is being developed at Tsinghua University. Other tools are also emerging that open up new opportunities for scientists. Therefore, one of the key tasks in our dialogue with the Chinese side is to jointly update the Roadmap and include new promising areas for the coming five-year period.
For our part, when forming the agenda, we rely on the Concept of International Scientific and Technical Cooperation adopted three months ago.
— What major joint scientific research projects are currently being implemented or planned for the near future?
— The development of big science by definition requires coordination of efforts at the international level, therefore large joint projects are one of the main areas of Russian-Chinese scientific cooperation. During the visit, we visited a number of Chinese megascience research facilities, including the EAST tokamak. The consistency of our Chinese partners in developing advanced scientific areas, including controlled thermonuclear fusion technologies, inspires deep respect. At one time, the Chinese thermonuclear program received a serious boost thanks to the Tokamak T-7 facility, which was transferred to them by the Kurchatov Institute. Today, the PRC has achieved world-class success in this area of knowledge, so I am confident that further joint work between scientists from our countries will be mutually beneficial and useful for all of humanity.
Multilateral agreements are also definitely effective. For example, in May 2023, a quadrilateral protocol on strengthening cooperation in fundamental scientific research was signed between the relevant ministries of Russia and China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. It outlines the current priority areas - conducting joint experiments in heavy ion physics, neutron and theoretical physics, work on medical accelerators as part of the BESIII and JUNO experiments, as well as scientific research using the NICA collider located in Dubna. Most importantly, these agreements work in practice - the joint committee selected eight scientific projects. Their implementation began last year.
— How is cooperation with China developing in the area of creating joint research centers or laboratories? Do Chinese scientists take part in Russian mega-science projects?
— We certainly see and support the interest of Chinese partners in working on the Russian mega-science infrastructure. Such cooperation enriches both parties. We expect that a Chinese experimental station may appear at the SKIF Shared Use Center, which is currently under construction in Koltsovo. In addition, we invited partners to participate in the International Center for Neutron Research based on the PIK high-flux reactor in the Leningrad Region and in the program for creating a network of modern synchrotron radiation sources, also implemented under the scientific supervision of the Kurchatov Institute National Research Center. In our opinion, it would also be promising to expand the participation of the Chinese side in the formation of international scientific information bases — after all, at the current stage of scientific knowledge there is a direct relationship — the more data and the higher the degree of their consolidation, the more likely it is that new discoveries will appear.
— What challenges remain in Russian-Chinese cooperation in science?
— The key challenge, in my opinion, today is to overcome the distance between science and industry. Publishing articles and filing patent applications is, of course, also a result, but the Russian economy needs more applied innovations for a technological breakthrough. To this end, we are consistently creating advanced engineering schools, in the development of which industrial partners are directly involved. For the same purpose, we relaunched the Priority 2030 program this year with an emphasis on achieving technological leadership. Chinese partners are also successfully solving this problem. In particular, by encouraging scientists to create their own start-ups, they encourage the transfer of technological results obtained by university laboratories to the commercial sector.
I am confident that this will help to increase the applied nature of joint R&D, and the first specific results will serve as an incentive for businesses to invest more actively in scientific research and support research teams.
— How many Chinese students are currently studying in Russia, and how many Russian students are studying in China? Is there a trend towards increasing exchanges between Russian and Chinese universities? Is it planned to increase quotas?
— According to data for the 2024/25 academic year, more than 56 thousand Chinese students were studying in Russia, and over 21 thousand Russian citizens were studying in China. Together with our Chinese partners, we are consistently moving towards the set bar for bilateral "turnover" of students, established in the Roadmap for expanding humanitarian cooperation between Russia and China. By 2030, we will bring this figure to 100 thousand people. Successful solution of this problem is fundamentally important for maintaining the current level of mutual understanding between the countries, maintaining our close ties in the political, economic, social and many other spheres.
By the way, Moscow State University and Peking University are currently working on creating a joint Institute for Fundamental Research. It will specialize in mathematics, physics, chemistry, life sciences, and earth sciences. Last year, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science and the Chinese Ministry of Education signed a corresponding memorandum and a protocol in support of this project. I also consider the initiative to create a Russian-Chinese Mineral Resources University, proposed by the St. Petersburg Mining University, to be promising. The main idea of the project is to jointly form an engineering elite for the mineral resources and fuel and energy sectors of the two countries.
Their signing can give a powerful impetus to the development of Russian-Chinese scientific and educational cooperation.
As Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin noted last year, speaking at the Harbin Polytechnic University, scientific and educational cooperation is one of the priorities in the development of the entire complex of Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction. We see our task as not only successfully maintaining this high bar, but also consistently deepening interaction along those tracks where there is a mutual need for it.
— What are the most promising areas of cooperation with China, if we talk about science and education, that need to be developed in the coming years?
— I have already noted some of them. In the field of education, this is, of course, the implementation of joint research and educational projects through the creation of joint faculties, institutes, and network educational programs. Russian and Chinese universities are already moving towards this form of cooperation, which will contribute to the development of academic mobility. We see that over the past five years, the number of Chinese students in Russia has almost doubled, and our students are also very interested in studying in China. Therefore, we are in favor of taking the quality of contacts between universities in the two countries to a new level. We are doing everything to achieve this.
It is important to remember that we expect the leaders of our countries to declare 2026 and 2027 as bilateral Years of Education in Russia and China. Of course, a number of events are planned in China. My colleague, the Minister of Education of the PRC, and I discussed the possibility of holding the All-China Conference of Teachers and Lecturers of the Russian Language at the joint university of Moscow State University and Beijing Polytechnic University in Shenzhen.
In the area of science and research, I repeat, we set ourselves the task of launching a joint scientific program in the field of megascience class installations. We need to give our researchers the opportunity to extract maximum benefit from the cooperation between the two countries.
