SibFU's students shortlisted for Russian-German competition of innovation projects

Natalia Demyanova and Maria Sentyurova, Master's students from the Institute of Economics, Management and Environmental Studies were shortlisted for the final competition of Russian-German «Young Visions Award» competition. The competition was hosted in Saint Petersburg from 22 to 23 September 2014.

The competition's organizers are Gazprom International and Wintershall Holding GmbH. It was established in 2013 and its aim is to attract German and Russian university students from technology programs to search innovative solutions to the environmental problems in various industries.

The competition's proposals were from 16 German and Russian universities. The shortlist included four projects from Northern (Arctic) Federal University, Freiberg Mining Academy (2 projects), and Siberian Federal University.

SibFU's researchers' project is about polimer sorbents. The team's advisors were Sergey Vasilyev and Lubov Lapushova, Head and Deputy Head, Centre for Advanced Studies in Oil and Gas Industries from the Institute of Oil and Gas.

According to Lubov Lapushova, the participants' task was to increase oil exploration and not to damage the environment. «The competition was really well organized. There was a social programme and a bicycle tour. We met last year's awardees. Oil companies, German and British academics presented „Sakhalin Energy“ projects and spoke about their achievements in extracting hydrocarbons. — Lubov Lapushova says — The teams' task was to show that the innovation was economically efficient. The project's objective was developing technologies to collect oil and oil products under the conditions of various oil spills of different scales. Maria and Natalia showed the experiments of collecting oil spills with the help of a sorbent».

The competition's winner was Martin Muller from Freiberg Mining Academy.

SibFU's Public Relations Office, 20 october 2014