On January 23, an off-site meeting was held in St. Petersburg at the St. Petersburg State Maritime Technical University under the leadership of Nikolai Patrushev, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Russian Maritime Collegium.
The event was devoted to key issues of training qualified personnel for digital transformation in the shipbuilding and related high-tech industries. The main focus of the meeting was on synchronizing educational programs with the rapidly changing demands of the industry, introducing modern digital technologies into engineering training, and developing cooperation between universities and enterprises.
Nikolai Patrushev focused on the need to create long-term strategies for improving the education system in order to solve the problems with personnel training for the digital transformation of domestic shipbuilding.
"There is an acute shortage of specialists who combine engineering knowledge with digital technology skills. For example, the need for information modeling specialists in shipbuilding alone will amount to 500 people per year from 2028. At the same time, graduates of technical universities often do not have sufficient IT skills, and IT specialists do not understand the specifics of the industry," Patrushev said.
He noted that only 10-15% of engineering students undergo internships in production, so most young professionals are not ready to work with modern equipment and software right away.
"In addition, shipbuilding is losing out to the IT sector in terms of attractiveness to young people due to working conditions and salary levels," Nikolai Patrushev added.
According to him, the problem is particularly acute in the regions where key shipbuilding enterprises are located — St. Petersburg, Severodvinsk, Vladivostok - and competition for IT personnel is high. "Both short—term retraining measures and a long-term strategy for improving the education system can remedy the situation," said the Chairman of the Russian Maritime Board.
The meeting was attended by heads and representatives of government authorities, leading specialized universities and industrial organizations to develop system solutions in the field of education and human resources, including the Rector of SFedU Inna Shevchenko.
Southern Federal University trains highly sought-after engineering personnel in the field of shipbuilding, ship management software developers, sonar engineers, top AI specialists, etc. The University has long-standing partnerships with leading companies in the industry, including Okeanpribor Concern JSC, Rostec Group of Companies and others.
Short link to this page sfedu.ru/news/79569
