IEM student Rudik Gabrielyan won an international academic competition

A master’s student Rudik Gabrielyan won the international academic competition for young scientists «Best young researcher award» organized by National Academy of Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan. IEM Associate Professor Ph.D. in Economics Ludmila Tkachenko is Rudik’s research adviser.

Rudik, about a 1000 people went through the competitive admissions. Why do you think the jury chose your work?

My work was dedicated to the topic of higher education. I carried out a comparison study of Russian and Armenian universities. I consider the education a very important matter for the society and I added an economical aspect to it. I think the results of my research are quite interesting.

What are the most interesting ones?

First of all, I am talking about the quality control of the education. More than 95% of TSU graduates are happy with it. That’s quite a good number. Also, in my work I compared the academic programs in different countries, it might help with adaptation of educational methods and improvement of the programs. There are more than 700 universities in Russia and this amount create a diversity of opportunities for the education. The majority of the universities are financed by the government. So, the academic performance is very important. In Armenia the accent of education lays in the IT field. An important trend is the development of IT sector and cooperation with the leaders in this field. Another vector is international cooperation enhancing the integration into the global educational space.

What was surprising about Russian universities?

I paid particular attention to the universities’ support programs, because Russia is a social welfare state. For example, MSU has programs of grants and scholarships for students from low-income families. It helps creating equal opportunities for everyone. In SPbU the welfare programs also include psychological support. The students of REU get help with accommodation.

You have done a serious job which obviously required a lot of preparation. Can you name some important events in your life for the last six months?

Earlier I had avoided public speeches due to stage fright. In April there was the XXII International Conference of Students and Young Scientists "Prospects of Fundamental Sciences Development". I delivered a repot there, but due to my poor performance I thought it was my last experience with public speeches.

But in October I got an invitation to «Best young researcher award» in Astana. I understood that it would be very difficult to get there but I decided to participate anyway.

Due to our cooperation with Ludmila Ivanovna Tkachenko I won the first-grade diploma which I think we deserved together. I am very grateful to her; it was very comfortable to work together. She was very helpful and I wouldn’t be able to finish my work without her.