Unsuccessful shots – Newspaper Kommersant No. 173 (7374) of 09/20/2022

Russian electronics manufacturers are reducing their interest in working with universities to train specialists, the Basis consortium found out. Targeted training of one student requires an average of 1 million rubles. expenses. Experts explain that personnel are urgently needed right now and market participants prefer to spend money on attracting them, rather than invest in long-term cultivation. In the scientific community, however, they assure that at least the leading universities continue to work with companies.

Kommersant’s interlocutors in the electronics market said that on September 15, a closed meeting of market participants with representatives of the Ministry of Digital Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the office of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was held at the Analytical Center under the government. Discussed, according to Kommersant sources, including the problem of a growing shortage of personnel in the production and development of electronics.

So, from a survey of 97 participants and experts in the radio electronics market conducted by the Basis consortium (Kommersant has it), it follows that in 2022 Russian companies began to interact less with universities for training. So, if in 2021 77% of developers and manufacturers were interested in this, then this year only 47%. Only 11% of companies would like to open universities-based laboratories (47% in 2021), 15% would like to implement joint educational programs with institutes (40% in 2021), and 14% would like to participate in research and development (43% in 2021). year).

According to one of Kommersant’s sources, the participants of the meeting expressed concern about the low conversion of university graduates, many of whom, even at the stage of education, talk about the desire to work in foreign companies or not at all in their specialty. So, according to the report of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation (it was presented at the Army-2022 forum, Kommersant has it), out of 20.8 thousand graduates of Russian universities in the field of radio electronics, only 35% are ready to work at domestic enterprises, 15% expect to leave them after one to three years of work, 10% initially want to work in foreign companies, and 40% do not plan to keep their specialty.

A Kommersant source close to one of the participants in the meeting explains the decline in companies’ interest in interacting with universities by the fact that manufacturers and developers are not ready to allocate budgets for training specialists who may eventually go to other enterprises.

Meanwhile, the costs can be quite large. Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Deputy Head of the Department of Micro- and Nanoelectronics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Evgeny Gornev specifies that for a company, training one student costs an average of 1 million rubles. per year: “This is the payment for the work of teachers, rent of housing in Zelenograd, where students do internships, a scholarship. Our postgraduate scholarship for such programs is 60,000 rubles. per month with a base of 8 thousand rubles. He, however, calls the data of “Basis” about the decrease in the interest of companies in the training of personnel unreliable, although he admits the presence of systemic problems.

“Companies now need technologists and designers, and literally several universities train them in Russia: Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, MSTU, MIET, HSE and MIREA,” explains Mr. Gornev. MIPT also stated that they do not observe a decrease in the interest of industrial partners in training personnel in terms of the electronic component base. The HSE and MIET declined to comment, MSTU and MIREA did not answer Kommersant.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade assures that Russian electronics developers do not reduce their interest in personnel training, but this year “the main focus is on strategically important issues of stabilizing the situation and redistributing supply chains.” According to Renat Yusupov, senior vice president of Kraftway, Russian developers are not ready to systematically invest in personnel training, because specialists are needed right now: , that is, a university graduate, for at least a year. Therefore, the expert explains, Russian companies prefer to spend money on attracting experienced specialists.

Nikita Korolev