In 1991 Ukraine gained independence. A new page in its history marked a radical restructuring of the entire life of the country and its citizens. This period was the beginning of serious changes in the activities of KPI - the largest and, of course, the most famous Ukrainian institution of higher technical education. The transformations took place during the period of work of the 23rd rector in the history of Kyiv Polytechnic Mykhailo Zgurovsky. He took this position in 1992, and it is his work at the head of the institute, which later acquired the status of a university, that is associated with fundamental changes in the very paradigm of the university. Changes that allowed Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute not only to survive in the difficult period of our country's existence, but also to acquire a new, higher quality in training specialists, in research, in international cooperation, in organizing interaction with industry, in meeting the country's needs for modern equipment and technologies... The list can be continued, because any direction, any aspect of the activities of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and Kyiv Polytechnicians has been significantly transformed during the years of Ukraine's independence. At the same time, the range of tasks performed by M. Zgurovsky as rector has expanded significantly.
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At the beginning of the journey
Let's recall the times when a young scientist and professor Mykhailo Zgurovsky took the helm of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
The KPI staff elected him to the post of rector in October 1992. It was the beginning of the establishment of Ukrainian independence. The political landscape of the country had already changed completely, but the young state was still shaken by attempts to preserve the outdated forms of a centralized system of government control over everything and everyone. However, on the ruins of the old economic ties and relations, the first frail sprouts of a new economy and forms of management began to break through. At the same time, the persistent imposition of market romanticism on society with its naïve belief in an “invisible hand” that would overcome all the economic problems of the young state gained strength. However, this magic “hand” did not want to do what was expected of it. The planned economy finally proved its inability to work in the new environment. This led to a deep crisis in the management and organization of all sectors of Ukraine's economy without exception. Changes were needed, and they were not long in coming.
Of course, they also affected the higher education system. Especially technical education, since the systemic economic crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s dealt a painful blow to the country's industry, which entailed a radical decline in production, the shutdown of some enterprises or their re-profiling, the reduction of production personnel, and, as a result, a decrease in the need for engineering personnel. For Ukraine, the blow was particularly severe because its industry was focused mainly on meeting the needs of the military-industrial complex of the former empire. All this could not but affect the prestige of professions related to the real economy. Thus, the profession of engineer, which in Soviet times was the most popular among people with higher education in the country, quickly became one of the least sought-after in the labor market. It is clear that fewer and fewer young people were willing to learn a profession through hard work that would not provide for them later.
There was a growing realization that future specialists needed to be taught in a new way, prepared to work in new realities, and new approaches to organizing the educational process needed to be found. But how to achieve this?
The answer to this question was obvious: we should look for such forms of the institute's activities and its optimal organizational structure that would be adequate to the changes in the economic and financial environment, help speed up the implementation of the results of research and development by its scientists and designers, update and bring future engineers' training programs closer to the needs of the real economy.
The search for new forms began in the late 1980s. The first steps to implement them in the practice of KPI were taken by the previous rector, Petro Mykhailovych Talanchuk, who was appointed Minister of Education shortly after Ukraine gained independence. Therefore, the approval, implementation, and development of ideas for modernizing the activities of all parts of the institute's organizational structure fell on the shoulders of Mykhailo Zgurovsky.
The new rector was already known not only in Ukraine but also far beyond its borders for his in-depth research in the field of system analysis and mathematical modeling of complex physical processes and intelligent decision-making systems in conditions of insufficient information, and at the same time he had considerable experience in organizational and managerial activities in the field of higher education. Actually, he gained this experience within the walls of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, with which he was associated all his adult life. In 1975, he graduated from the Faculty of Control Systems of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Automated Control Systems. In 1979, he defended his PhD thesis on “Optimal discrete control of one class of distributed unsteady-state heat transfer processes”, and in 1984, he defended his doctoral thesis on “Computer-aided design and optimal control of unsteady-state processes and fields under data uncertainty”. In 1987, he became a professor at the Department of Technical Cybernetics. Five years later, Mykhailo Zgurovsky was elected a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and in 1995 he became an academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. At KPI, he overcame all the steps of the career ladder from student to vice-rector for academic work and acting rector, so he was well aware not only of the institute's potential - educational, scientific and technical - but also knew exactly all its bottlenecks and problems that had to be overcome immediately.
This knowledge and experience allowed the newly elected rector to immediately begin implementing a program to transform the institute from a post-Soviet, centrally controlled educational institution with a “reproductive” system of education, which by inertia “stampeded” specialists whose knowledge and skills did not always meet the needs of the newborn market economy, into a modern technical university. This program was largely based on the experience of the world's leading technical universities. The strategy implemented was to ensure transformation from the model of a large polytechnic institute of the former Soviet Union, which provided educational and research work in narrowly focused specialties, to the model of a European-style technical university with universal, broad-based training in accordance with the needs of society and a flexible, time-adapted management system. At the same time, it was impossible to neglect the traditions of Kyiv Polytechnic established and maintained by its famous predecessors, starting with the first director of KPI, a renowned scientist in the field of mechanics and resistance of materials and an outstanding organizer of higher education, Professor Viktor Kyrpychov and his successors, including such famous scientists and engineers as Mykhailo Konovalov, Kostiantyn Zvorykin, Viktor Bobrov, Oleksandr Pligunov, Hryhorii Denysenko, Petro Talanchuk and others. Their legacy had to be not only preserved, but, having rethought it in the light of modern realities, built on it to create a new quality of the Institute's activities that would meet the dictates of the new times. Mykhailo Zgurovsky succeeded.
A clear awareness of the situation and understanding of the tasks that the Institute's staff had to solve in order to successfully integrate into the realities of today allowed Rector Zgurovsky and like-minded people - primarily managers of various levels, such as vice-rectors, deans, and heads of departments - to work purposefully to modernize the Institute's activities, improve the quality of education, and expand the areas of training and research. This was facilitated by decisions to democratize relations in the team at all levels and decentralize management, update the social security system, humanize and humanize education, and strengthen the economic component in the education of future specialists.
Results of the first reforms
In a little over 10 years, 11 new faculties and educational and research institutes, more than 50 departments, and more than 150 new specialties and specializations were opened at KPI. This was a response to the needs of the national economy. The Faculties of Informatics and Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Aviation and Space Systems, Physics and Mathematics, and Physics and Technology (since 1999 - the Institute) began to train specialists for organizations and enterprises of various forms of ownership. And in 1997, the Educational and Scientific Complex “Institute of Applied Systems Analysis” of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was founded at KPI, the basis of which was the Department of Mathematical Methods of System Analysis of KPI. And not only the institute, because on the initiative of Mykhailo Zgurovsky, the World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development (WDC-Ukraine) was later created on the basis of KPI, whose activities are also related to the problems that scientists, teachers and students of IASA are dealing with. The Center is a full member of the World Data System (WDS) of the International Science Council (ISC) and specializes in interdisciplinary research of complex systems of various nature, in particular in the field of geoinformatics in the context of global modeling of sustainable development processes and assessment of global threats to human security and quality of life.
The range of training areas at the institute was constantly expanding: traditional technical specialties were joined by others: the KPI became part of the Publishing and Printing Faculty (since 2004 - Publishing and Printing Institute), which had previously worked as an evening faculty of the Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute named after I. Fedorov located in Lviv. The Faculty of Management and Marketing was organized in 1992, the Faculty of Linguistics in 1995, the Faculty of Law in 1995, and the Faculty of Sociology in 1996 (later these two faculties were merged into one - the Faculty of Sociology and Law), and the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports in the same year (in the 2000s it merged into the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering). Of course, this was accompanied by constant work on improving the content and methods of education to ensure the training of well-rounded specialists.
So, traditionally, the technical college acquired the organizational and educational forms of a university. A few years later, it received official legal confirmation of this: By the Decree of the President of Ukraine of April 8, 1995 №289/95 “On Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” KPI was granted the status of a national self-governing (autonomous) state higher education institution and was named “National Technical University of Ukraine ‘Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’ (NTUU ‘KPI’). At that time, the new university actually became a platform for testing new approaches to the organization of the modern educational process and one of the centers for developing a strategy for the development of national higher education.
The university's international reputation has also grown significantly, especially after it became one of the first universities in Ukraine to join the community of universities that signed the Magna Charta Universitatum. Its representatives began to take an increasingly active part in international conferences on reforming higher education in our country and harmonizing it with the European educational system.
Leadership in everything
The powerful organizational and scientific potential of the rector of the most famous institution of higher technical education in Ukraine and the rapid progress of the university through restructuring in modernizing the system of training specialists for the Ukrainian economy and for the orders of other countries did not go unnoticed at the state level: On November 18, 1994, M.Z. Zgurovsky was appointed Minister of Education of Ukraine. He held this position for 4.5 years without leaving his work at KPI. As a minister, he had to solve many tasks in an operational mode - from ensuring timely funding for the entire industry to resolving conflicts in individual educational institutions. However, the turnover did not prevent him from working to achieve the main goal of reforming the national education system and transforming it into one that would meet the needs of a young independent state. In fact, it was a question of creating a new education system-modern in content, forms, and technologies and national in spirit. But at the same time, it was necessary to preserve the best traditions and practices of the education system that had been shaped by scientists and teachers of many previous generations. And during his tenure as Minister, Mykhailo Zgurovsky and his team managed to create the legal framework for the education of independent Ukraine, formulate the concept of humanizing education (i.e., making it as close to human as possible) and educating the younger generation of Ukrainian citizens, introduce the Ukrainian language as a compulsory language for education, create a national system of accreditation of educational programs of educational institutions, and organize the preparation of a new generation of textbooks that met the needs of the education system of an independent state and did not distort reality, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute became a kind of laboratory for reform. And the main course of modernization of the higher education system of Ukraine was its integration into the European educational and scientific space. The work in this area resulted in Ukraine's accession to the Bologna Process, a full transition to a three-level education system (bachelor's - master's - doctoral) at Ukrainian universities, the signing of the Lisbon Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications in Ukraine, etc. And also, a number of leading Ukrainian universities, including, of course, Kyiv Polytechnic, were included in the world's top 1000 universities according to recognized international rankings.
It was only in 1999 that Mykhailo Zgurovsky was able to focus fully on his work at KPI again. The next stage of modernization of the university began. The model of the “knowledge triangle” was increasingly implemented: “education - science - innovations”, which was persistently and systematically advocated by the rector at all levels of training. An important step in this direction was the wider involvement of students in research at the departments. Participation in scientific research, software development, preparation of articles for specialized publications and reports at scientific conferences, and with the beginning of the war that russia unleashed against our country, practical work to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities, has become an important part of studying at KPI. This resulted, first of all, in deepening the integration of research activities with the educational process. In 2007, the university was granted the status of a research university (the first in the country!), the model of which is based on the development of mechanisms for the functioning of modern forms of integration of science, education and innovation, training of researchers and highly qualified specialists for knowledge-intensive industries, implementation of innovative activities in market conditions through the university's science park, and development of a knowledge-based economy.
A logical consequence of the introduction of the “knowledge triangle” concept into the daily practice of the university's departments was the deepening of the integration of research activities with the educational process. Today, students of Kyiv Polytechnic mostly acquire knowledge and skills not only during lectures and standard laboratory work. In the process of studying, they are immediately introduced to the range of problems that their research teachers are working on, and they have the opportunity to master practical skills not only and not so much in classrooms as in laboratories, at test benches, in the implementation of real innovative projects and their commercialization through the creation of their own startups.
Through innovative development
By the way, the university pays considerable attention to innovations, because the effectiveness of innovation within its walls depends on the proper organization of research and implementation activities. The center of this work is the University Innovation Environment, created on the initiative of Rector Zgurovsky, where students, staff and faculty have the opportunity to cooperate not only with scientific institutions and enterprises, but also with specialists from high-tech companies, investment funds and business structures. The role of the core around which it was formed is played by the Science Park “Kyiv Polytechnic”. It should be noted that its creation was preceded by serious work of the rector and leading university specialists with the Committee on Science and Education of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which resulted in the Law of Ukraine “On the Science Park ‘Kyiv Polytechnic’ adopted on December 22, 2006. It was the first law of this kind in our country (again the first!). The structure of the Science Park includes separate subdivisions of KPI, scientific, production and educational organizations working in the field of high technologies, as well as consulting, legal, financial and other business entities. Over time, a full-fledged innovation ecosystem consisting of four components has formed around the park: Research and Development Unit (R&D), Department of Innovation and Technology Transfer, Science Park Kyivska Politechnika, and Sikorsky Challenge Innovation Holding. The model proved to be very effective, and soon the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem “Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine” was built on its basis - an open innovation ecosystem whose participants are institutions interested in the accelerated development of the Ukrainian innovation economy, defense and security: universities, research institutions, innovative companies, defense industry enterprises, foundations, NGOs, state and local governments. One of the important elements was the Sikorsky Challenge startup school network, which grew out of the Sikorsky Challenge university startup school established in 2014. And, of course, one of the most important elements of the entire ecosystem is the annual Sikorsky Challenge International Festival of Innovative Projects, which has been held at the university since 2012 on the initiative and with the direct participation of Rector Mykhailo Zgurovsky. By the way, this festival and the startup competition held as part of its program have become a real brand and, at the same time, a business card of the university. In fact, the Sikorsky Challenge innovation ecosystem has become the country's first island of high-tech breakthroughs. The achievements of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute scientists in research and innovation, in particular in scientific support of the state's defense industry, space research, unmanned aerial vehicles, cybersecurity, and other critical high-tech areas are well known in the country and the world and have been recognized by numerous State Prizes of Ukraine in Science and Technology and many state awards.
Another structure that was created on the initiative of the rector to bring science and industry closer together is the Kyiv Polytechnic Innovation and Production Platform, founded in 2015, a new model for our country to unite research and innovation organizations and industrial enterprises. It includes a number of well-known domestic industrial enterprises of various forms of ownership and the Science Park “Kyiv Polytechnic”. This entity became the basis for the implementation of primarily defense and dual-use developments, because with the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine, polytechnics had to adjust the principles of their activities in terms of increasing the university's scientific and educational contribution to the country's defense capability.
Among the innovative achievements of Kyiv Polytechnic, there are things that are unique for our country. For example, only Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute has its own space program, which includes the launch of PolyITAN-1, PolyITAN-2-SAU, and PolyITAN-HP-30 nanosatellites, the first university spacecraft in Ukraine, and several promising nano- and microsatellite projects that are still being developed.
It should be noted that innovative development is not only the intensification of research and development activities at the university. It is also the introduction of innovative technologies and teaching methods into the educational process to improve the quality of training. Therefore, in recent years, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute has launched more and more dual training programs involving not only the university's educational and research departments, but also innovative companies and enterprises of various industries, research institutions and organizations (in particular, for the first time in Ukraine, Boeing Ukraine and Progresstech-Ukraine became partners of the university); double degree programs with leading foreign universities (in 2002, for the first time in Ukraine, the MMI, Welding and Engineering Physics faculties were The holding of summer schools on various topics at the university and the participation of Kyiv Polytechnicians in such schools held at partner universities, the expansion of participation in academic mobility programs, and so on are highly welcomed.
Moreover, in recent years, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute has been increasingly focused on integration with the European education system, participating in projects and programs of the European Union together with European universities, UN and UNESCO scientific institutions, and developing research projects based on contracts with companies from the United States, Germany, South Korea, Japan, and other countries.
Not only teaching and research
One of the issues that have been in the area of his constant attention since the very beginning of his work as rector was the creation of a special, so to speak, corporate culture at the university, imbued with the spirit of academia, creative work and, at the same time, aimed at fostering in students, teachers, staff members a sense of belonging to a large family of Kyiv Polytechnics and involvement in the history of the university. Because today's achievements of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute have grown on the basis of the achievements of its great predecessors, and the current successes of our contemporaries will become a launching pad for the rise of our descendants. All of this has happened, is happening, and should continue to happen on the historical territory where KPI was founded more than 125 years ago. That is why buildings, classrooms, laboratories and workshops are not the whole university. Today's KPI is impossible to imagine without the State Polytechnic Museum named after Borys Paton, monuments to prominent scientists and designers whose lives and activities were connected with KPI, the elegant hall of the Academic Council, the old university park and the new Park of the Unconquered, public gardens, the Foucault pendulum in the Scientific and Technical Library, and so on and so forth. All of these “objects” were created or overhauled during the rector's tenure or on his initiative. By the way, his immersion in the history of KPI, his popular biographical sketches dedicated to prominent polytechnicians whose work changed the world, his book “Kyiv Polytechnic: The Way to the Stars”, which has undergone several reprints, also lies in this plane. A special place in this research is occupied by the figure of a prominent Kyivan, world-famous aircraft designer and one of the most respected innovators of the twentieth century - Igor Sikorsky, whose name was given to KPI in 2016 on the initiative of Mykhailo Zgurovsky, supported by the Academic Council of the University and the vast majority of polytechnics.
KPI in the years of Ukraine's independence
The time of trials
In 2014, a new period of KPI history began. The war that russia unleashed against our country by annexing Crimea and starting hostilities in our eastern regions forced the polytechnics to review and adjust the conceptual foundations of their activities in terms of increasing the scale of the university's scientific and educational contribution to the country's defense capability. This was preceded by extensive analytical and organizational work under the leadership of the rector. In a few years, the university has already created several dozen new dual-use and special-purpose technologies, some of which have been put into service with the state over the past five years. KPI has also become the country's main methodological center for training personnel in the programs “Organization of Information Protection and Cyber Security”, “Management in the field of the military-industrial complex”, “Operation and repair of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft” and other strategically important areas. And the new realities of life in Ukraine, which arose after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by russia on February 24, 2022, forced the university to add another important task to its development strategy: increasing the state's defense capability and laying the foundations of national resistance. In a matter of months, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute intensified research and training in military-industrial areas, ensured the development of new products and technologies for dual and military use. A powerful volunteer movement has also gained momentum. As part of this movement, the university founded the Kyiv Polytechnic Foundation for Assistance to the Armed Forces, which provides Ukrainian soldiers with equipment, weapons, medicines, and vehicles on a regular basis. At the same time, the rector's constant concern was to strengthen security measures at the university, arrange shelters, etc. It is not without reason that the first multifunctional “smart shelter” in Ukraine was built at Kyiv Polytechnic with the participation of socially responsible business. At the same time, active work is underway to create and develop a platform for the post-war innovation transformation of the country, in which Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute will play an important role.
... The 32 years of M.Z. Zgurovsky as rector of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, his initiatives, projects and achievements, as well as the problems he had to solve, can be discussed for a long time. This article outlines only some of the areas of his work for the preservation and development of the university, as the space available in the newspaper does not allow us to tell you about everything in detail.
So, in conclusion, we must simply express our gratitude to Mykhailo Zgurovsky for his selfless service to Kyiv Polytechnic over all these years and hope that the completion of his work as rector is not the end, but the beginning of a new stage of work at the university.