Nowadays nobody doubts the fact that our future depends on research and innovations. We just need to use their results wisely. University research is not at a standstill either. Our interview with Nataliya Ivanivna Chukhray, Vice-Rector for Scientific Research, is about this year’s tendencies of University research and what young scientists of Lviv Polytechnic should expect.
– Nataliya Ivanivna, what are the plans for 2017?
– This year we would like to intensify work with students and young scientists. For this purpose, a Business Innovation Centre, Lviv Tech StartUp School, headed by professor Nazariy Podolchak, was founded last year. This new structural unit has to provide the development of innovative projects and ideas, form favourable conditions for students’ and talented youth’s development and realisation of their potential. Now we are forming innovative infrastructure of academic entrepreneurship, organising co-operation with business environment, developing innovative work. We are hoping that the Business Innovation Centre will operate in the building in 2 Filaret Kolessa str. starting in summer. At the moment, its young team is working in the main building.
– Are you betting on talented students and young scientists?
– I think that they are very pro-active, creative, prepared for new rules of the game and challenges of the society. Young people feel the market better, they know and use new technologies. Thus we only have to help them design and promote scientific technical startup projects. This Business Innovation Centre will have its own renovated premises, where there will be specialised well-equipped laboratories, so that our students, while studying, will also learn how to create and realise innovative projects. We already have agreements with a number of enterprises, which are ready to invest in such laboratories.
– Why is business interested in co-operating with our Polytechnic?
– Lviv Polytechnic has a powerful resource. That is talented and intelligent students, experienced scientists and lecturers, who help students in their creative innovative work by providing them not only with theoretical knowledge but also with practical skills. Professor Nataliya Shakhovska (ICSI) and professor Roman Holyak (ITRE) are among them. These professors always support their students, they can open their talent, they help by setting an example and sharing their experience. For instance, Natalya Bohdanivna, took students to a startup competition in Poland last year. It seems a positive fact that Lyublin Scientific Technological Park was interested in our students’ startups. On the other hand, our students realise their projects using Polish money and they stay in Poland. Thus we give away our talented youth and their ideas. They work for other countries, not for Ukraine, although it was our country that invested money in their education. That is why we would like to form an innovation environment favourable for students, where students and young scientists of Lviv Polytechnic and talented young people from other higher educational institutions could work together. We can speak about synergy effect, when all parties interested gain profit: Polytechnic, students and entrepreneurs.
– What is the objective of this Business Innovation Centre?
– The objective is to form an innovation ecosystem (that is a system of knowledge, ideas, energy exchange) and mutually beneficial connections between students, scientists and business representatives. The foundations of such ecosystem were laid in previous years. Now we have to develop this infrastructure for innovation and entrepreneurship work of students and young scientists, using comparatively small investments and do this in a short period of time.
– Will this Business Innovation Centre charge tuition?
– Our best students will study and realise their startups for free, others will have to pay. It is a very important field – working with young people through realising their startups together with business.
– Are you co-operating in this sphere with other educational institutions?
– With the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, we have common plans with Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University to hold students’ startups competitions. This year we will cover western region. The semi-final of the competition will be held in our University, and the final will take place in Kyiv. I hope that next year the final will be held in Lviv Polytechnic.
– What other aspects are you going to pay attention to in your work?
– Another important task is making the results of research and technical research work commercial. On the one hand, it calls for active marketing support through printing advertisements, participating in exhibitions, meeting with business representatives. In 2016, we systematized and published a catalogue of research and technical developments. In 2017, we plan to take part in various research exhibitions, meetings with business representatives. We will work on making our developments commercial. We plan to intensify work on preventing and detecting academic plagiarism in polytechnics’ monographs, articles and dissertations. It is also important to revive our technopark. There are some proposals of interesting projects, which can be realised on the territory of the technopark, which are being discussed now.
– Do all developments of polytechnics have a chance to be implemented?
– Polytechnic has a lot of interesting research developments. However, many of them remain on paper. We think that out Ukrainian economy is open to innovations now because it needs energy saving technologies, import substitution, etc. That is why now is the best time to realise our applied developments (they are becoming competitive because they are much cheaper than foreign ones). The problem is that not all University developments or patents are interesting for business, which wants to have quick payback of the investments (usually there is a significant gap between the result of research and its real implementation, the so called «death valley» of a development). To overcome this, in 2016, Lviv Polytechnic, for the first time, held a competition of research and technical developments. Its main objective was to discover and support financially potentially successful scientific and technical projects oriented at a particular applied result. Based on the results of the competition, four relevant and marketable projects have been selected to be financed this year. I believe this will set an example of making the results of our scientists’ work commercially successful.
– What are important tasks of University research nowadays?
– Generally, a new system for managing and financing research is being formed in Ukraine at the moment. This sets new tasks for us. In 2017, higher educational institutions and research institutions will undergo state accreditation. We will work not only on developing innovation infrastructure and making research results commercial for Lviv Polytechnic to confirm its status of a research university. We have to make sure that our scientists send quality articles to the journals which are included into internationally recognized bases such as Scopus, Web of Science, because this creates image of our University at the national and international levels. This also means quality research and enhances our opportunities for international co-operation in receiving grants and participating in international projects. I would also like to draw attention to the quality of academic publications and ethical and scientific aspects of publishing articles and monographs. We will grant special attention and support to the fundamental component of research and providing quality professional training of candidates and Doctors of Philosophy.