Dear participants and guests of the session of the university faculty and the Conference of the staff!
Let me congratulate you on the Independence Day of Ukraine and on the 124th anniversary of the founding of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
At this time, the Ukrainian people have to defend the territorial integrity and freedom of their country at great cost. Over the past eight years, our team has also suffered significant human losses. 28 students, faculty and staff of the University gave their lives during the Revolution of Dignity and the Russian-Ukrainian war. Four of them were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. I ask you to honor the memory of the fallen Kyiv Polytechnic students with a minute of silence. Thank you.
It is important that during all this time the KPI staff continued to fulfill its statutory tasks in full, confirming cohesion, social responsibility, patriotism and professionalism.
The beginning of 2022 was dramatic for Ukraine and for Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. The war radically changed the work of the university and people's lives. After the end of the hot phase of events in Kyiv, the educational process was resumed at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. The order of March 22 determined its organizational forms. Since May, more than 70% of university employees have returned to full-time work. These measures allowed us to stabilize KPI's activities, successfully complete the academic year, and graduate 3740 bachelors and 250 masters in 72 educational programs.
To decide on the forms of organization of the educational process in the new academic year, a survey of students and teachers was conducted. More than 70% of teachers confirmed the possibility of conducting the educational process in a face-to-face mode. At the same time, 60% of students informed about their physical absence in Kyiv, but expressed a desire to continue their studies at KPI. As a result, it was decided to organize the educational process in the new academic year in a remote mode with elements of full-time education in certain programs for students who will be physically present at the university.
Believing in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and doing everything to bring victory closer, we must understand that we are faced with the task of strengthening the defense potential of the state and rebuilding a new, modern country with an economy focused on knowledge-intensive industries with high standards of innovation. The war has proven that it can be won not only by the military on the battlefield, but also by advanced technologies, engineers and scientists in the field of electronics, information technology, operations research, materials science, systems engineering, mechanics, and other engineering fields.
This poses a number of challenges for us in terms of early modernization of educational programs and research and innovation activities.
Further deepening of cooperation with the labor market is a priority for us. According to Forbes-Ukraine magazine, even under martial law, 34% of HR executives say that their companies are investing in training and retraining as part of their future strategy. Therefore, over the past year, the university continued to launch new educational programs demanded by the labor market and high-tech business.
An important step was the creation of a new graduate employment system at the university, which is based on the functioning of a special information platform that takes into account the interests of the university, students and employers.
Last year we saw a significant development of the dual form of higher education. We signed agreements with 43 companies and enterprises for 49 educational programs. Among the leading companies are Huawei, Ajax, Samsung, DTEK, Antonov State Concern, Energoatom, Progresstech, and others. We have received the latest equipment from these companies and three Starlink satellite Internet stations, which are used in the educational and scientific process.
Special attention was paid to training specialists for the defense sector of the state. Two new programs were implemented jointly with Ukroboronprom: "School of Professional Development of Design Engineers" and "Implementation of Standardization and Quality Management System at Enterprises and Organizations of the Defense Industry".
When working remotely, we must take all possible measures to improve the quality of education. One of the tools aimed at achieving this goal is the Sikorsky e-learning platform. Today it has more than three thousand certified courses. At the beginning of 2020, there were about three hundred of them. The first impetus for the active development of distance learning at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute was the COVID-19 pandemic. The war accelerated this process.
Work continued to develop a culture of academic integrity. Regulatory and legal documents were improved, and the discipline "Academic Integrity" was launched for bachelors. The system of detecting textual matches and academic plagiarism in manuscripts of KPI scientists, teachers and students was improved. Due to the martial law, Unichek company provided extended opportunities to check texts for plagiarism free of charge.
Interdisciplinary educational and research programs were improved based on the principle of engineering's penetration into medicine, biology, environmental protection, economics, the public sphere, etc. For example, most of the university's defense projects are fundamentally interdisciplinary in nature. Specialists from different departments of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute are involved in their implementation.
Work continued on automating the university's management activities. The Megapolis electronic document management system was introduced with connection to the System of Electronic Interaction of Executive Authorities. As of today, 378 workplaces have been created in the electronic document management system, covering all administrative and educational and research units without exception. The system "Personnel of Higher Education Institutions" was introduced, which allowed to automate the work on personnel records.