Interviews and a seminar took place at St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University “LETI” during the visit of the consultants of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) – A global leading higher education marketing company, Jacques de Champchesnel and Eimi Satoh.
Jacques de Champchesnel, QS consultant, spoke about the purpose of his visit, shared his impressions of the university and his vision of the ETU “LETI” development prospects.
– This is your first visit to ETU “LETI.” Please, tell us about your impressions of visiting the university.
– First of all, people are very welcoming at all levels. It says a lot about the university. You feel that people are very dedicated. They like the university very much. You have a lot of alumni working at the university, and it says a lot. You feel that there is a strong historical legacy but I always going towards breakthrough discoveries and technology, and you feel that the university has always been innovative and trying to impact the future through innovative technology and research. So, my first impression is it’s a great university; the only problem is that you need to tell this to the world.
– What is the purpose of your visit?
– Our interaction with the university is to try to work together on global engagement strategy, how to engage with the world. You are the great Russian university with a global mandate. Global mandate cannot be only in Russia; it has to be in the world. We try to see how to go the most effective way of interacting with the world.
– Which aspects of the activity of our university do you consider as strengths? What are the most notable achievements?
– The mindset. You feel that there is the mindset of discoveries but not disconnected with reality, connected to the real world, industry, making a difference. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the university contributed to the electrification of the biggest country in the world. Now, when you hear about biomedical engineering, which is of interest to anyone. So this is the kind of a mindset applied to all the different technologies developed at ETU “LETI.”
– Can rankings help a university to achieve its goals?
– Rankings are a reality, a good reality or bad. Imagine we would destroy all rankings; we would have new ones because human nature needs to make classifications. Rankings can show globally what LETI is very good at, especially subject rankings. They give the possibility to say that LETI is good in this or that field. Rankings can be a source of useful information about a university.
– What do you think are the prospects of ETU “LETI”?
– The world. You are in Saint Petersburg, and the mindset here is open to the world. The prospect of LETI is to contribute to the advancement of the humankind with all that breakthrough research. When we talk about research, we say that we are standing on the shoulders of giants to go to the next step. LETI has a crucial role in its different fields. With its mindset, it can be among the best universities in the world.