A Delegation Arrived from the Indian Embassy

As well as Professor Polukhin, the University was represented by Professor Vladimir Kulikovsky, the Director of the Medical Institute and Professor Mikhail Pokrovsky, the Chief of the Research Institute of Living System Pharmacology at BSNRU. Regional government was represented by Albina Buchek, the Chief of the Department for Professional Education and Science, a part of the Department of Internal and Personnel Policy.

During his formal greeting, Professor Polukhin noted that the opening of a pharmaceutical plant in the Belgorod Region, the first such Indian investment in the area, is a significant event for the University. Seeing Mr Rajesh Sharma, the company's General Director, he said, "The opening of this enterprise creates new opportunities for cooperation in training personnel for the pharmaceutical industry."

The Rector went on to underline the fact that today more than 200 students from India are studying Medicine or related subjects at BSNRU, with 26 of them graduating this year. He reported that representatives from Indian pharmaceutical companies say that India's labour market is under-supplied, and as such, requires an expansion of specialist training. Professor Polukhin asserted that, "We can prepare personnel for most of the required disciplines including biotechnologists, chemists, pharmacists, process engineers, and more besides."

His Excellency brought greetings from the Government of India to the staff of the Belgorod State National Research University and stressed the importance of the exchanges between Indian and Russian teachers and students. He said,

“I am happy to be in such a modern, impressive and large scale university. I am sure that we have great potential for teamwork. The two main programs in the area of inter-university international cooperation include an invitation for Russian teachers to lecture in India, and support for joint research programs with Russian universities. I invite representatives of your institution to take part in these programs"

The Ambassador thanked the leadership of the Medical Institute for the training of Indian students and offered to assist in our recruiting campaign in India, stressing that it is better to invite students without intermediaries using local recruiting companies.

In turn, Professor Kulikovsky suggested considering the possibility of organising residential practice for Indian students in medical clinics in India in the summer, noting that graduates of the Medical Institute, including foreign students, have the opportunity to do a residential in their specialism in Russia for at least two years after graduation.

Representatives of the Indian companies present expressed interest in cooperating with BSNRU in preclinical research. According to Professor Pokrovsky, the university has sufficient capacity for carrying out preclinical research. Up to now, our staff has carried out more than two hundred projects, among them bioequivalence studies for medicines.

As part of his visit to the University, His Excellency gave a lecture to Russian and Indian students from the Medical Institute, the Institute for Cross-Cultural Communications and International Relations and the Institute of Economics.
The Ambassador lectured on the theme of Russian-Indian relations and the peculiarities of both countries, ending by answering questions posed by the students.