Ural Federal University

Ural Federal University (UrFU)

Уральский федеральный университет имени первого Президента России Б.Н. Ельцина
Latin: Universitas Uralensis
Former names	Ural State University, Ural State Technical University
Motto	Russian: Думай, делай, достигай! Latin: Cogitare, agere, consequi!
Motto in English	Think, act, achieve!
Type	Public
Established	1920 (established), 2011 (integrated)
Endowment	RUB 79,636,174 (~USD 1,280,000) (March 2019)
President	Stanislav Naboychenko (until 2013)
Rector	Victor Koksharov (from 2010)
Academic staff	2993 (March 2019)
Students	34794 (February 2019)
Location	Yekaterinburg , Sverdlovsk Oblast , Russia 56°50′38″N 60°39′14″E
Campus	Urban
Colors
Affiliations	University of the Arctic, Association of Sino-Russian Technical Universities, Russian Council on International Affairs, The Euroasian Universities Association, Association of technical universities of Russia and China, International Association of Architecture and Construction Higher Educational Institutions, Association of Russian leading Universities, Erasmus Plus, BRICS Network University, SCO Network University, CIS University
Website	http://urfu.ru
Building details
Main university building

The Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin (Уральский федеральный университет имени первого Президента России Б.Н. Ельцина, Uralʹskiĭ federalʹnyĭ universitet imeni pervogo Prezidenta Rossii B.N. Yelʹtsina, often shortened to UrFU, УрФУ) (formed by a merger of the Ural State Technical University and Ural State University) is an educational institution in the Ural region of Russia and one of 10 Russian Federal Universities. It acts as a research and innovation center of the Ural region and cooperates with the Russian Academy of Sciences. UrFU offers educational programs in four areas of knowledge and 108 academic majors.

In 2022 it was ranked #351 in the world by QS World University Rankings, #701-800 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, #1,001 by World University Rankings by Times Higher Education, and #1,070 by Best Global Universities Rankings by U.S. News & World Report.

History

USTU (UPI)

20th century

The Ural University was established in the town of Ekaterinburg in 1920 by a decree of the head of Soviet revolutionary government Vladimir Lenin. However, the university underwent a number of changes due to the lack of resources in such circumstances as revolution and civil war.

Finally, the university split into two: Ural State University (USU), a smaller university responsible for education in natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, and Ural Polytechnic Institute (USTU-UPI), a larger one focused on training engineers in areas such as metallurgy, machine-building, civil engineering and power engineering. At the same time, UPI was developing several new (for the time) areas of knowledge like nuclear energetics, organic chemistry and synthesis, and telecommunications. Despite such partition, both universities were connected closely with each other.

21st century

In 2006, Yevgeny Shurmanov, Director of the Institute of Physical Culture, Sport and Youth Policy of the Ural Federal University, was awarded the sports title “master of sports of Russia” in boxing. In 2022, however, the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation stripped him of the title, after he was arrested on fraud charges consisting of embezzlement.

The merger process of USTU-UPI and USU to create Ural Federal University (UrFU) began in 2009 and was completed by the spring of 2011. During almost 100 years of its history, the university has produced more than 360,000 graduates. One is the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin ('55), whose name the university bears nowadays.

In March 2022, the rector of Ural Federal University published a statement endorsing the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In response to the invasion, edX - a massive open online course (MOOC) provider created by Harvard and MIT - removed all its course content offered by Ural Federal University.

Rankings

Ural Federal University held the following positions in national and global rankings:

Globally:

• placed #351 by QS World University Rankings, 2022
• placed 701-800th in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, 2022
• placed #1,070 by Best Global Universities Rankings by U.S. News & World Report, 2021
• place #1,001 by World University Rankings by Times Higher Education, 2022

Emerging market regional:

• placed 43rd in the QS Emerging Europe and Central Asia University Ranking, 2021
• placed 84th among BRICS countries universities (QS World University Rankings: BRICS), 2021

Russia:

• placed 13th among Russian universities (Webometrics Ranking of World Universities), 2022
• placed 14th in the ranking of Russian universities by the Interfax Rating Agency, 2022

Structure

Institutes and departments

USU

Ural Federal University consists of the following Institutes and Departments:

• Graduate Engineering School
• Graduate School of Economics and Management
• Institute of Chemical Engineering
• Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture
• Institute of Fundamental Education
• Institute of New Materials and Technologies
• Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
• Institute of Open Educational Technologies
• Institute of Physical Education, Sports and Youth Policy
• Institute of Physics and Technology
• Institute of Public Administration and Entrepreneurship
• Institute of Radio Electronics and Information Technologies
• Ural Institute of Humanities
• Ural Power Engineering Institute
• Faculty of Military Training
• Military Educational Center
• Supplementary Vocational Education Centers
• Specialized Educational and Scientific Center of UrFU (UrFU Lyceum)

Establishments of Basic General Education

• Lyceum No. 130
• Specialized education-scientific centre UrFU

Branches and representative offices

• Nizhny Tagil Technological Institute - a multidisciplinary higher education establishment located in Nizhny Tagil. The institute has trained more than 14,500 mechanical engineers, metallurgists and specialists in automation and maintenance of equipment.
• Polytechnical Institute in Kamensk-Uralsky - a higher education establishment that offers bachelor programs in radiotechnics, electric power and metallurgy.

International partnership

Dmitry Medvedev and Angela Merkel at the "Petersburg Dialogue" Russian-German forum in 2010

One important direction of activity is integration of Ural Federal University into the international research and educational environment. The university participates in network educational projects (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, European Union, UNESCO, BRICS).

Facts and figures

The number of full-time students studying at UrFU exceeded 35,000 in 2019. They came from 75 countries, and were taught by more than 4,200 faculty members. 424 educational programs were provided by 13 institutes. More than 360,000 people have graduated from Ural Federal University over the years. Since 2008, the university has been bearing the name of Boris Yeltsin – graduate of 1955, who was elected first President of independent Russia in 1991.

The first international students arrived at Ural University in the 1940s. During almost 100 years of the university's history, it has produced more than 2,500 specialists from Europe, Asia and Africa.

In 2019, about 3,100 international students studied at UrFU. During an academic year, the university prior to 2022 was attended by more than 20 international delegations. Among them – ambassadors of the US, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, The Republic of South Africa, and Mongolia.

Research

UrFU scientist Victor Grohovsky talks to press during presentation of Chebarkul meteorite samples analysis

Key areas of scientific research at UrFU:

• Physics and astronomy: condensed matter physics, physics of magnetic materials, optics and laser physics, radio physics, electronics, acoustics, quantum theory of solids; spectroscopy of activated crystals, fundamental studies of properties of materials under extreme conditions, the physics of low-temperature and nonideal plasma and its use in power engineering and clean technologies; theoretical and experimental thermal physics, physical gas-kinetics and surface physics, physico-chemical mechanics of heterogeneous and multiphase media, stellar astronomy.
• Power engineering: development of scientific principles of energy policy and mechanisms for its realization under market economy conditions, the fundamental problem of creating a safe and clean energy (including nuclear and fusion energy), non-conventional energy conversion processes, the fundamental problems of energy conservation and fuel efficiency.
• Metallurgy: development of resource-saving and environmentally friendly processes of complex processing of ores and its wastes, the creation of new metallic materials with the desired properties.
• Сommunication technologies: integrated information and telecommunications networks and systems, the mathematical theory of pattern recognition.
• Mathematics and Mechanics: theory of control and differential games, theory of algebraic systems and its applications to computer systems, the theory of functions and operators, the fundamental problem of construction of systems of automatic designing, mathematical methods of research of nonlinear control systems and processes, mathematical modeling in medicine.
• Chemistry and Materials Science: Theory of chemical bonding, kinetics and mechanisms of chemical reactions, solid state chemistry, chemistry of radioactive elements, physico-chemistry of polymers, the development of methods for the directed synthesis of complex organic molecules in order to obtain physiologically active substances with a selective effect, the development of the fundamentals of catalysis and the creation of highly efficient and selective heterogeneous, homogeneous and enzymatic catalysts and catalytic systems, the creation of chemical current sources, the creation of structural ceramics and silicate materials with sufficient ductility on the basis of oxides, nitrides, carbides, oxycarbonitrides.
• Biology: population and evolutionary ecology, animal ecology, environmental forecasting and assessment, plant physiology and studies of photosynthesis, industrial botany, ornithology.
• Philosophy and sociology: the history of philosophy, philosophical anthropology, epistemology, aesthetics, social philosophy, sociology of the individual.
• History and Ethnography: Source Studies, Archaeology and Social History of Byzantium, Ural and Siberian Archeology and Ethnography, Siberian and Ural archaeography; social history of the Urals and Siberia, theory and history of international relations.
• Philology: onomastics, dialect lexicology and lexicography, lexical semantics, linguistics and stylistics, folklore and literature of the Urals and Siberia, Russian classical and modern literature, literary stylistics, theory and history of journalism.
• Economics: Regional Economics, competition and institutional aspects of economic growth, foreign investment and international transfer of technology, corporate governance, economic history and the history of economic thought, mathematical methods in economics.

Supervisory Board

In accordance with the Federal Law of 03.11.2006 No. 174-FZ "About autonomous institutions", a supervisory board was created in UrFU. As of March 2019, it consisted of:

• Dmitry Pumpyansky, Chairman of the UrFU Supervisory Board, President of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, chairman of the Board of Directors of OAO TMK
• Marina Borovskaya, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation
• Valery Charushin, Chairman of the Presidium of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
• Arkady Chernetsky, Member of the Federation Council of Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation
• Andrey Kozitsyn, Director General of the UMMC-Holding
• Evgeny Kuyvashev, Governor of the Sverdlovsk Oblast
• Yaroslav Kuzminov, Rector of the National Research University – Higher School of Economics
• Igor Manzhurov, Head of the Ural Regional Office of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation
• Dmitry Peskov, Director of "Young Professionals" sector at the autonomous non-profit organization "Agency for Strategic Initiatives for New Projects Promotion"
• Aleksandr Povalko, Director General of the Russian Venture Company
• Tatyana Yumasheva, Director of the Сharitable foundation of the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin.

Alumni

Notable alumni include Leonid Volkov a politician and public figure, IT specialist, and chief of staff for Alexei Navalny's campaign for the 2018 Russian presidential election.

UrFU Alumni Association was established in 2012. In 2012–13, the university established offices of the Alumni association in Mongolia and Russian cities of Moscow, Nizhny Tagil, Kamensk-Uralsky and Noyabrsk. It also planned to establish offices in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Israel and Germany.

Awards and achievements

The "Dedicatied to Young People" short film, which features Ural Federal University graduates giving advice to current UrFU students, won the ‘Most Creative Corporate Institution Video’ QS-Apple Creative Award and received the title of QS-Apple Creative Idol. The contest was held in 2011, at the 7th QS Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education Conference and Exhibition, in Manila (Philippines), and was organized by Quacquarelli Symonds.

See also

• Open access in Russia
• Department of Theory and History of Political Science