MOSCOW, 30 Aug. The All-Russian Festival of Science Popularization «Vector of Success» will sum up the results of the first season at the science show «VECTOR.FEST», which will be held on September 2 at NRNU MEPhI in Moscow. How did the summer online marathons of the festival end? How does the «Vector of Success» help to solve the problem of popularizing domestic science and attracting young people to the profession of a scientist? Svetlana Ganat, head of the NRNU MEPhI Department of External Communications, told the correspondent about this.
— A new academic year is about to begin. How do you assess the motivation of young people to engage in science?
— At present, the motivation of young people to study engineering specialties, to conduct research, is certainly growing. Including thanks to the projects of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. But in general, the desire of young people to engage in science is still low.
One of the reasons is the children's orientation towards professions with a high level of income and entrepreneurship. Of course, the state needs specialists in various fields. But now, when we are talking not just about Russia's technological sovereignty, but about technological leadership, the country needs young people focused on victories in science.
Motivation itself to make money when a young person considers its goal and success is a high income or life of a rentier, it seems to me vicious. That is why today it is especially necessary to popularize the profession of a scientist.
We want to show that real success is an opportunity to do interesting work, realize yourself, get recognition and feel happy. And we, creating the concept of the festival, set ourselves the task of showing the connection of success with science, with creative work.
– The first season of the Vector of Success festival is coming to an end. Did its results meet your expectations?
— In general, yes. We hold a large number of competitions that demonstrate the attractiveness of research work, playfully show what it is to do science, popularize science and involve many people in our festival. But so far we are only at the beginning of the journey.
From the very beginning, we have set quite ambitious goals for ourselves, which cannot be achieved in a few months. With the help of the festival, we want to show people the connection between interesting work, self-realization, scientific creativity and success.
– Tell us about the participants of the festival's competitive program. Who was the most willing to respond to assignments?
– Most of our active participants are young people from 14 to 23 years old who choose a life path. Getting acquainted with popular science news, they try to determine the most interesting topics for themselves and what they would like to do. And by participating in competitions, they choose the instruments of activity that are attractive to them.
Parents of schoolchildren also participated in our competitions. Often they sent creative projects of their children, it is always very pleasant and touching. Unexpectedly, there were many grandmothers among our participants. Apparently, there are a lot of active, intellectually active people among them. By the way, pensioners today may have a much greater impact on society than we think. They have their own opinion and can defend it, they are more likely than busy parents to discuss with their grandchildren the prospects for a life path and their experience. Therefore, we plan to include participants of the Moscow Longevity project in the festival events.
– How do you evaluate the results of the competition program?
– We received very interesting answers to the questions of our online marathons. The participants tried on the images of great scientists, invented something, took pictures, shot a popular science video … It was clear that they were doing this not only for prizes, but also because they were interested. By the way, their competitive works are very interesting to read. I think we did even better than we planned.
– How do you plan to develop the festival in the future?
– Our task is to draw attention to the successes of Russian science. We would like to assemble a team of scientists who will speak to the public about science in a simple and understandable language, so that the books or articles written by them are read not only by specialists, but also by ordinary people. This is not very easy, because even good specialists cannot always explain complex things in simple words.
Therefore, our task for the next year is to create a collaboration of educational and scientific organizations. Scientists from these organizations, together with journalists, would popularize their discoveries to a wide audience.
The first step towards working on this project may be the association within the framework of the festival of NRNU MEPhI with different universities. We have already entered into a partnership and are working with the Far Eastern Federal University, with the Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology. K.I. Skryabin, with the St. Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics. B.P. Konstantinov, we conclude an agreement with Novosibirsk State University and other organizations.
Next year we will start talking about young scientists — not only from NRNU MEPhI, but also from other universities and research institutes.
— What awaits the festival participants at the VECTOR.FEST science show, which will NRNU MEPhI September 2?
— We invite everyone to our holiday! With its help, we want to attract the attention of people of all ages and education to our festival.
Starting from 12:00 we are waiting for everyone, including children and pensioners, to look at scientific experiments and shows. Famous chess players, ex-world champion in rapid chess and blitz Sergey Karyakin and international women's grandmaster Maria Fominykh will play with the guests of the festival. It seems to me that people who play chess and enjoy intellectual activity are also our audience. A good scientist should be able to calculate moves and think ahead.
At 15:00, the solemn event «Dream Vector» with the participation of our lyceum students will begin. Well-known popularizers of science will perform for high school students, students and all science lovers. Among them are the scientific editor of the Anthropogenesis.ru portal Stanislav Drobyshevsky, the famous astronomer, the author of the Unearthly Podcast project Vladimir Surdin, our esteemed rector Vladimir Shevchenko and other famous scientists. The holiday will end with a concert featuring popular music groups.
The broadcast of our scientific show will take place in all regions where there are MEPhI branches, and in our partner universities. There will also be held their events «Vector of Success». We hope that the first season of our festival will be remembered by all its participants and we will continue our work to popularize science with renewed vigor.