During his visit to China, TPU Rector Petr Chubik and the President of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development (CASTED) Hu Zhijian have signed an agreement to establish a Sino-Russian Think Tank platform. CASTED is the analytical center of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, responsible for developing strategic decisions on science and technology policy of China.
In 2013, the People's Republic of China announced a new strategy for economic development One Belt and One Road Initiative. The project is aimed at creating infrastructure and establishing links between the countries of Eurasia. It includes two key areas of development: the economic belt of the Silk Road and the Marine Silk Road, which implies the creation of a trade corridor for direct supplies of goods from the East to the West.
The signed agreement is about the establishment of the Sino-Russian Think Tank platform in the framework of the One Belt and One Road Initiative.
Its strategic goal is to assess the social and economic impact of engineering solutions. The platform will collect data on accepted and planned research and engineering solutions; evaluate the decisions, taking into account their economic, social, cultural and other influence; forecast favorable and negative consequences from engineering decisions for specific territories of the Russian Federation.
The assessment and forecast will be based on Technology Assessment (TA) and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles. RRI is a new approach to the evaluation of research and innovation results, which consists of anticipating the potential applicability of technology, meeting its social expectations, evaluating possible long-term effects and social impacts of research and innovation results, based on sustainable research and technology.
TPU will become the base for the Think Tank. The agreement indicates that for this purpose TPU has a number of advantages: beneficial geographical position in the center of Russia and close proximity to the zones of the planned land route One Belt and One Road; expertise in conducting the research of this kind; ties with China (CASTED). This summer, CASTED President Hu Zhijian visited Tomsk Polytechnic University and got acquainted with the university activities. In addition, TPU has been actively cooperating with China for 15 years, implementing a number of projects with Chinese universities and companies. For instance, one of the largest projects is customs inspection systems based on betatrons, which are supplied to Chinese companies.
Signing the agreement CASTED President Hu Zhijian expressed confidence that the novel Think Tank will evolve into a communication and analytical platform for Chinese and Russian research organizations and universities.