Nowadays Sumy National Agrarian University is one of the leaders in applied agricultural science in Ukraine. This result was achieved thanks to a peculiar reform that was carried out at the university during 2017-2021. The growth of funding, improvement of indicators, successful certification confirm the correctness of the chosen development direction.
During this period Sumy National Agrarian University for the first time participated in the competitive selection of projects, basic and applied research, scientific, technical and experimental developments with the participation of higher education institutions and research institutions that belong to the field of Ministry of Education and Science management. As a result, funding was received for three projects. The scientific advisor – Doctor of Agricultural Sciences prof. V. Ladyka, the scientific advisor – Doctor of Economic Sciences prof. L. Mykhailova, the scientific advisor – Doctor of Technical Sciences prof. V. Tarelnyk worked much at these projects. Besides, young scientists managed to win several competitions for young scientists, receiving funding for four projects: scientific advisor – Doctor of Economic Sciences prof. V. Medvid; scientific advisor – PhD. S. Sabadash; scientific advisor – PhD. A. Klochko; scientific advisor – Doctor of Biological Sciences prof. I. Kovalenko.
A separate area of the competitiveness ensuring of the university was the coverage of research results through the publications in leading scientific journals, including journals included in the scientometric databases Scopus and Web of Science. During this period, the annual number of publications in Scopus increased from 50 indexed articles in 2017 to almost 200 in 2021. Most of them are articles in journals belonging to the 1st and 2nd quartiles and published in international research groups. According to the Scopus rating, Sumy National Agrarian University in 2022 ranks the 51st position in Ukraine, and according to the Web of Science rating – 49.
The relevance of research and the importance of the results were a prerequisite for the establishment in 2018 on the basis of Sumy National Agrarian University, the first in Ukraine Center for collective use of scientific equipment for the latest agricultural technologies.Attracting financial resources of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, grant revenues, support for agribusiness made it possible to update the laboratory and scientific base.
An important condition for the development of Sumy National Agrarian University is the training of highly qualified personnel. The university has a postgraduate course in 12 specialties, where more than 250 graduate students from 8 countries study. In 2018, the university signed an agreement with the Henan Institute of Science and Technology and took 40 graduate students from the People’s Republic of China. At the end of last year, the first defense of the PhD thesis of Chinese graduate student Li Yunbou took place.
As you know, the reform of scientific training provides for the accreditation of educational and scientific programs by the National Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education of Ukraine. Sumy NAU was one of the first in the country to join the accreditation process.
The effective work of specialized councils made it possible to defend more than 30 theses for the degree of Candidate and Doctor of sciences and significantly strengthen the scientific schools of the university. Active work on the preparation of doctors of PhD, doctors and candidates of science caused the strengthening of measures to prevent violations of academic integrity. For several years, the university has had agreements to use Unicheck and StrikePlagiarism resources to test textual borrowing.
In the context of work on training scientific staff, an important task is to work with student youth to involve them in research activities. The university annually holds scientific conferences for students, graduate students and young lecturers. One of the key areas is participation in the All-Ukrainian competition of student research papers. It is nice to note that the number of winners affiliated with Sumy National Agrarian University is growing every year. In 2021, more than 40 students became winners.
Positioning itself as an applied university, SNAU emphasizes the development of innovative activities in cooperation with domestic and foreign business. In 2021, the University together with the enterprises of TM “Oberig” created the Science Park of Sumy National Agrarian University, the task of which is the maximum transfer of scientific developments of the university into production. Each year, the university gets about 20 patents. Breeders of the Potato Growing Institute of the North-East of Ukraine have bred more than 30 varieties of potatoes. Scientists of Sumy National Agrarian University try to emphasize not only the relevance but also the uniqueness of scientific developments. In particular, together with TM “Oberig” and “Ichnia Plant of Powdered Milk and Butter” for the first time in Ukraine industrial production of A2 milk began.
In 2021, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine conducted a state certification of higher education institutions in terms of their scientific (scientific and technical) activities. Sumy National Agrarian University was accredited in all areas: Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary group B, Technical sciences – group B, Social sciences – group B.
