BP representatives arrived to Kazan University on March 30th to hold the award ceremony.
The first part of the meeting was dedicated to contestant interviews, and then the awarding itself followed. Vice-Rector Marat Safiullin in his welcome speech thanked the company for its devotion to the ongoing cooperation with KFU.
Master students of several institutes became winners this time, the biggest number (seven) came from the Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies; it’s only natural because the program covers research in oil extraction and refining, IT, engineering, economics, and management.
Vice-President for External Affairs BP Russia and CIS Vladimir Drebentsov said, «We have been supporting students, PhD candidates, and teams at KFU for several years now. Your university is one of the nine in Russia with which we cooperate in this format, and we are glad to have this opportunity to support young talents at KFU».
Master students with receive monthly stipends of 15 thousand rubles, and PhD candidates – 30 thousand. Research projects will be awarded 10 thousand USD each – this time five teams came on top. Many of these projects have bright prospects on the market, as the visitors said.
Mr. Drebentsov reminded that this is not the only form of support provided by BP to Russian universities. The other is funding for visiting lecturers. For instance, this mechanism was used for Gabriel Di Bella’s appearance in November 2016.
The program, as was announced, will continue next year.