Dear conference participants,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me introduce one of the leading higher educational institutions of Russia for training professionals in the energy sector. This is the Ufa State Petroleum Technological University (USPTU).

This year the university celebrates its 65th anniversary. The jubilee inspires us to achieve higher levels in education and science. In the course of its 65-year history, the Ufa Petroleum University has taught more than 85 thousand highly skilled professionals. They took part in creating oil and gas industry in Russia, and today they are doing their best to strengthen the industrial and economic potential of our country.

Almost 25,000 students of the university, including 600 persons from 44 countries around the world, are receiving education according to different forms of training and specialties. The university has got a unique team of higher-education faculty members who have laid foundation for world-known scientific schools, propopsed highly efficient scientific and technological developments and modern educational strategies and established strong upbringing traditions for younger generations. Today the state education policy puts the issues of students' upbringing in the spotlight. The modern upbringing system is aimed at forming a culturally and professionally competent person with a high worldview potential and abilities for intellectual and social creativity. Sound health and good physical status are also considered the key elements of the system. This objective is successfully implemented thanks to well-developed facilities, social infrastructure and staff resources of the university. Many activities pursued in our university have received iniversal recognition. Thus, its quality management system was certified in 2007 to the ISO 9001:2000 International Standard by the well-known German Certification Agency TUV Thuringen and recertified in 2011 to the ISO 9001:2008 Standard. The USPTU was one of the first educational institutions to certify its environmental management system to the ISO 14001:2004 Standard and the occupational health and safety management system to the OHSAS 18001:2007 Standard. The European Foundation for Quality Management represented by the All-Russian Quality Organization considered the activity of the USPTU to be in compliance with the EFQM Excellence Model. At the 10th Jubilee Congress of the Asian Network for Quality (ANQ) held in Hong Kong in 2012, the USPTU won the Best Practice Award in quality management, production, human resource management and social responsibility. The USPTU was the third Russian organization to receive the award and the only one in 2012.

The academic process in the university is maintained by 1,030 lecturers, including 140 professors (with DSc degrees) and 550 associate professors (with PhD degrees). The average age of the faculty members is 47 years. More than 100 experts and top managers from 25 industrial enterprises of the energy sector are systematically engaged in academic activities. The number of young faculty members is steadily increasing. Their active recruitment is encouraged by monthly increments of 100 to 400$.

In our university, the educational process is open, transparent and accessible to everyone in Russia and abroad via Internet or the internal official website. This turns out to be very beneficial for strengthening the university positions within the international education community. Such characteristics of the USPTU as development dynamics, partnership reliability, quantity and quality of available services, success on the Russian market, its status as a state educational institution and well-developed infrastructure attract the youth from all regions of Russia, former Soviet republics and foreign countries. Today the number of foreign students exceeds 600 people, 60% of them being taught on a government contract basis and 40% on a tuition-free basis. These are the representatives of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, China, Vietnam, Nigeria, Angola and other African countries, South America, Asia and Middle East. Forty four countries have entrusted their youths to us. And we spare no effort to ensure that professional competence of our graduates will enhance their competitiveness and increase demand for them as specialists due to knowledge and skills they have acquired in modern software products and IT-technologies.

The university develops actively scientific, innovative, informational and advertising activities. In 2012 the total amount of research and service funding exceeded 10 million USD.

The university marks its 65th anniversary in full bloom. We have done everything as best we can, but there are still dozens of ways to improve the multifaceted activities of our students, faculty and staff members.