ISU is ranked among the top 10 universities in Russia by number of winners in the Vladimir Potanin Foundation competition for professors of Master’s degree programmes. Four ISU representatives became winners:

Oleg Bernhardt, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Natural Sciences of the Faculty of Business-Communication and Computer Science – “Workshop on methods of analysis and deep machine learning for master’s degree students without specialized mathematical education”;

Olga Istomina, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Head of the Department of Socio-Economic Disciplines of the Pedagogical Institute – “Redesign of the educational product “Theory and Practice of Intercultural Communication” for students of master’s degree programmes within the group 44.04.01 Education and Pedagogical Sciences”;

Ivan Petrushin, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Natural Sciences of the Faculty of Business-Communication and Computer Science – “Modernization of the course on the bioinformatics tools application for the analysis of genomic data”;

Tatyana Usheva, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Social Pedagogy and Psychology of the Pedagogical Institute – “Redesign of the Master’s programme «Interdepartmental Interaction of Specialists in Education and Social Sphere»”.

The winners of the grant competition for professors of Master’s degree programmes will receive a grant of up to 500 000 rubles. The project implementation period is 12 months.

The emphasis of the supported initiatives is on the development of teaching methods in the following areas:

• Student-centered approach: developing students’ skills in independently building educational and professional trajectories. Involving students in the process of updating course content, self-assessment and analysis of educational outcomes.
• Interdisciplinarity: abandoning narrow field specialization. Development of the social partnerships and application of the applied project-based (problem-based) learning, for example: development of IT solutions for clinical medicine, integration of the principles of inclusion into cultural urban projects.
• Content updating: integrating new knowledge about modern technologies and materials, principles of ecologization, green economy, and sustainable development into educational programmes.
• Flexible management of educational content: developing new methods of assessing student knowledge, aimed at increasing the flexibility and efficiency of the educational process (including abandoning the traditional point-rating system).

In the 2024/2025 competition, 574 applications were received from 68 universities, 526 applications were admitted to expert evaluation. 150 initiatives aimed at redesigning and transforming educational products will receive grant support. The total amount of grant support for the winners is 73.8 million rubles.