They placed a bet on youth and did not lose

USUE Rector Yakov Silin, in an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda, spoke about the role of the Eurasian Economic Youth Forum in the process of Russia's Eurasian integration.

“At one time, having organized the Eurasian Economic Youth Forum, we hit the point of being in demand. We came to this field a decade and a half ago; I mean the Eurasian direction, the economy, and youth issues. We have combined the triune into one whole system, and we continue to stand on this,” Yakov Silin said to authoritative edition.

The head of one of the country's leading economic universities stressed that our region, being in the center of Eurasia, has formed an entire system of relations and views around itself: one of the 10 largest industrial exhibitions in the world, Innoprom, is held here. In 2009, the BRICS-SCO summit was also held In Yekaterinburg. 

“At USUE, we partly accepted the accumulated experience and continued the traditions but in the youth field,” the rector added.

This approach to organizing the forum every year demonstrates its success with ever higher rates. There were 107 participating countries from all continents and 79 regions of Russia, as well as over 2,000 experts - theorists and practitioners of economics, business, law, and technology - at the XIII EEYF. Young scientists, students, and schoolchildren presented almost 9,000 interesting projects at 45 forum competitions. At least half of them, according to the jury, are worthy of implementation.

The forum participants discussed the coordination of development plans, harmonization in the legislative environment, prospects for cooperation in education, science, and economics in the context of the emerging multipolar world.

“The world cannot be unipolar, otherwise it takes on ugly forms, the suppression of any dissent, everything that the Americanized public does not like, everything that does not coincide with their opinion. However, Russia cannot live at somebody’s bidding, it is determined by God to be a power even in difficult historical periods. We want strong Russia, and we want to be friends with other countries, wherever they are.” 

67 diplomats, 28 of them ambassadors of states, met with the representatives of science, government, public organizations and business sector at the traditional forum of diplomats held within EEYF. USUE rector, Professor Yakov Silin notes that in the development of Russia's relations, in particular, with the countries of the East and South, the importance of the Ural region will increase. This is due to the concentration of industry: here it is many times higher than the all-Russian level, which is quite high in the world. And in terms of the number of universities per population, Yekaterinburg is ahead of the whole country.

“The potential of Ural science is largely concentrated in the defense industry. And since technologies from the military industrial sector often come into the civilian one, it is possible to produce goods that society needs. Today we are somewhat behind in this regard, we need to quickly change our economic policy, more actively stimulate the investment development of the economy, all its main sectors,” Yakov Silin expressed confidence.

In addition, the USUE rector believes it is necessary to increase funding for universities to give life to new educational and laboratory buildings, improve the material and technical resources: “We are looking at China. Universities there receive colossal support from the government, and they become very competitive with ours, and with European, and with other foreign best universities. Why? Because they provide conditions for the brightest teachers to come to work for them. A bright teacher attracts future students. It seems to me, in the coming years, this should be a priority area of work for all universities.”

Today, Ural State University of Economics, in particular thanks to EEYF, has become an alma mater for more than 2,500 students - citizens of 68 countries of the world. Besides, it was USUE that became the first university in the Ural that joined the Eurasian Network University formed in spring 2022 on the sidelines of the 1st Eurasian Economic Forum in Bishkek by the leaders of 15 universities in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.