The Kyiv Polytechnic is a renowned leader of technical education and research in Ukraine and the whole world. Its alumni work successfully in all the parts of the globe. Many of them devoted their life to their alma mater, rising to the heights of scientific and pedagogical mastery, creating scientific schools, becoming mentors and examples for new generations of Polytechnicians.
On the 1st of September, 1963, Yuriy Yakymenko stepped into the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Now, for more than fifty years, Y.I. Yakymenko, doctor of technical sciences, professor, academician of the Ukrainian National Academy of Science, honored scientist of Ukraine and winner of State Prizes of Ukraine in science and technology, first vice-rector of the NTUU “KPI”, is still always present at the KPI grounds. We approached Yuriy Ivanovych to ask him a few questions.
– Yuriy Ivanovych, the Kyiv Polytechnic is now inconceivable without you. How did your way to KPI start?
– The beginning of the 1960s was a time of fierce debate between the physicists and the lyricists – young people tried to understand who's more important in society. I didn't stand aside, as well – in 1963 I graduated from Kyiv's school number 48 with a gold medal, and music school, where I played the violin. But the physics won, I got swayed by the new specialty on the newly-formed department of radioelectronics (now Faculty of Electronics, FEL) – semiconductors and dielectrics.
– What did you do during your years as a student?
– It wasn't easy to become a student, back in the day. For 125 first year vacant places only 25 were for those without work experience. Nine people competed for each place. Eight scores were considered – school marks for physics and maths, plus mean mark of the certificate and five exams – maths (written and oral), physics, foreign language and Ukrainian; and no benefits for medalists, either. The whole first year we, former schoolchildren, studied in the evenings, and worked for the whole working day. I got my work experience in the Arsenal Design Bureau of the eponymous factory.
All in all those were very positive years, full of intense work. There was a cult of learning, you see. Many gifted students studied together with me, and on my 4th year I got the Lenin stipend (which you had to study three years without 4s to get). Thanks to M.M. Nekrasov, who then headed the department, and my scientific guide V.V. Lavrynenko, I got to study piezo- and segnetoelectrics, the research results went into my candidate's thesis, and then a doctor's thesis.
Another page from my student years is working in construction squads during the summer. Somewhere on Sakhalin Island there are still buildings built by us Polytechnicians, and I, Yurko Yakymenko, was one of them. From 1967 Ukrainian students' construction squads started going abroad; I worked in Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia. I even got distinguished as a honorary citizen of a small town near Wroclaw, where we built housing. (As a note, construction squads worked selflessly for 12 hours a day. As Yuriy Ivanovych confessed, he earned money for his first condo in the construction squads – Auth.)
– You went through all the career steps in KPI: student, postgraduate, assistant, docent, professor, department head, dean, first vice-rector. Were there many difficult moments?
– Made dean at 36, set a longtime KPI record. Younger people today routinely break it, though. Been first vice-rector since 1992, in Mykhailo Zakharovych's team. I share and support his efforts at making KPI the leader of international education.
I am convinced that any visible results are reached by intensive efforts. When I was defending my doctor's thesis, the demands were very serious, I already was a dean, and it wasn't conductive to doing research. I once began passing exams as a student, and continued ever since, no matter the achievements and the positions. When I was elected as a member and academician of the Ukrainian NAS, that, too, attracted additional attention from the men of academia.
– Your position as first vice-rector makes you the direct participant in all the processes taking place at the Kyiv Polytechnic. Today KPI works as a research university, coordinates its activities to deeply integrating education, science and innovation. What goals are set before the university staff?
– Our first priority, as before, is ensuring the quality of education, of training specialists. Last year we approved the University Development Concept, which must be executed so KPI takes its rightful place among the best universities of Europe and the world.
The university's development is defined by its people potential. Our task is to preserve scientific schools and qualified lecturers with rich practical experience, and create the means for developing those scientific schools by training young specialists, through interconnecting the training programs for masters and candidates. At the start of master's course we choose prospective young researchers (not only KPI graduates) and orient them at the end result, thanks to pervasive guidance of their masters' and candidate's theses. To do so, departments need to have powerful scientific and education schools acting together with other scientific institutions, such as departments of Ukrainian NAS. The Electronic Campus system also gives wide possibilities for students and teachers conversing, and it is always improved, the information resources of the department are improved, including English-language versions.
he employers expect young experts to have not only modern professional knowledge, but also teamwork, basic management knowledge, computer mastery and foreign languages. So we'll keep using the facilities of the Kyiv Polytechnic Science Park, the supercomputer centre, the World Data Centre, science and education centres of international companies and others for the young researchers' practical work. We work so that our graduates may stand a chance at the worldwide competition.
– What does one need and what qualities one must have to successfully head such a large staff?
– Besides professional qualities, you should be attentive to people, you should do good things. In the 50 years spent in KPI's staff I think of it as my family – we solve university's problems together, and those problems are made of our individual problems. I hear people out and try to help everybody. It doesn't always happen, but we can reach consensus and the work goes on. I'll work for the university as long as I am able – and I'm still full of vigor.
Concerning scietific interests – me and my colleagues together work in nanomicroelectronics. The field I'm heading is electronics in energy generation. Our work has recognition and we work together with American and European universities. (Yuriy Ivanovych discreetly left out that these achievements were awarded by, among other things, two Ukraine State Prizes in science and technology, and two prizes of the National Academy of Sciences. - Auth.)
The international Elnano Conference, first started by our microelectronics department, is growing popular. The last conference brought together 118 experts from 16 countries around the globe, and information about it is presented in scientometric publications. Sadly, Ukraine's microelectronics are wrought with fundamental problems. So we try to change it for the better by training modern experts and doing our own research.
– Your scientific school is known outside of Ukraine.
– As a docent, all the way back in 1979-80, I trained at the Louvain Catholic University (Belgium). This respectable educational institution traces its history back to the XVII Century, and that they should invite a KPI representative was a sign of attention to our institute. Actually, I had to rapidly improve my English while there, because in that region nobody spoke French. Knowing languages is very helpful both in work and in life.
Now, as an invited lecturer in French universities I try, each year, to set aside a week or two and read lectures to their students, postgraduates, masters. I also held lectures with scientists from Germany, the Netherlands, the USA and even Japan. They usually know about our KPI, recognize us, hire our graduates.
– Such achievements must be rewarded accordingly.
– I'm not overenthusiastic when it comes to rewards, they're just recognitions of the whole staff I work with. I was awarded an Order of Merit thrice – by Leonid Kuchma in 1998, Victor Yuschenko in 2007, and Victor Yanukovych in 2013.
– KPI is one of the national science and education authorities. How do you manage to keep in the lead?
– Not only keep in the lead, but go on towards international recognition. One good memory: when we were preparing a cooperation agreement with the Ecole Polytechnique (France), there were a lot of approvals and mutual visits. And this is a famously serious institute, with 1.5 thousand students and the same number of researchers and lectureres, its students parade on the Champs Elysees, and it's based in a campus outside the city. So we go, at last, to sign the agreement, there are Ukrainian and French flags at the entrance, our hearts are full of pride. It is occassions like this that're worth working for.
In order for our graduates to remain competitive in the labor market, and for their diplomas to mean a comprehensive education, we introduce new forms of educational activity. We've introduced throughout foreign languages education, intensive IT studies, students can receive a secondary education, et cetera. For example, in the science park young researchers can participate in scientific research and technology transfer. We also create joint science and technology centers with leading industrial companies – Cisco, Motorola, Intel, Boeing, Rigaku, and others. Students train on modern machinery and then introduce and service this machinery in industrial processes.
The joint diplomas program with foreign higher education institutions turned out to be absolutely worthwhile. Dozens of our masters are now improving their knowledge in France or Germany, over a hundred graduates defended their theses in two languages and have a wide choice for further career growth. The only Ukrainian science and educational centre “Nanoelectronics and nanotechnology” was opened in NTUU “KPI” to train highly professional scientists and engineers.
– You're a person of widely different interests, different branches of activity – one of those who support KPI's prestige in the nation and worldwide. How do you see our university in, say, 10 years? Or do your dreams go further?
– Our task is to preserve and multiply KPI's authority. The university's founding fathers first set forward and supported very high goals for its activity, which can be seen in the first rector, V.L.Kirpichov's, scientific papers, or the notes of the head of the first exams commission, Dmitry Mendeleev, and many others.
Тож бачу КПІ потужним європейським науково-освітнім центром з високим рівнем кадрового потенціалу, ґрунтовною фундаментальною підготовкою студентів, куди залюбки приходять навчатися, працювати, приїжджають на конференції та стажування. А випускники пишаються приналежністю до великої КПІшної родини і гордо несуть по світу ім'я київського політехніка. So I see KPI as a powerful European centre of science and education, with a high people potential, a comprehensive fundamental knowledge base, where it is always good to come and study, work, attend conferences and train. And its alumni are proud of belonging to the great KPI family and proudly bear the name of a Kyiv Polytechnician.