Minin University has signed a new strategic cooperation agreement with a renowned Indonesian higher education institution: Diponegoro University in Semarang. The cooperation will include the following areas: pursuing joint research, promoting academic mobility of faculty, undegraduate and graduate students as well as their joint scientific supervision.
The document was signed at the international conference on environmental issues that was attended by more than 150 delegates from 26 countries. Te event was organized by Diponegoro University as well as the University of Indonesia (UI). UI is the founder and the leading force behind the UI GreenMetric, the authoritative global ranking of ‘green universities’. The only delegate from Russia was the Adviser to the Rector’s Office, Dr Evgeny Zakablukovskiy who was invited by the organizers to make a keynote speech on the efforts applied by Minin University to improve its sustainability by building a special system of interaction between the students and the administration.
Despite the specific objective obstacles on the way to the ‘green' development of urban universities, the speaker argued that it is possible to obtain a synergy effect of bottom-up development in the direction of the environmental sustainability of an urban university by combining efforts and goodwill of all parties even in difficult objective conditions. In particular, the university built a system that encourages implementing environmental projects suggested both by the university administration (‘from above’) as well as by the students (‘from below’) as well as established internal communication channels and responsible supervision lines. The university administration administers the application process for UI GreenMetric rating, launched an annual competition on social and environmental projects among students and allocated resources for implementing winner-projects as well as upgrading university premises. The students are responsible for the planned work of relevant student associations, ‘green’ ideas generation, participation in working groups for project implementation and driving student environmental events.
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UI GreenMetric is the global ranking of ‘green’ universities that evaluates the efforts of each participant to develop an ‘environmentally friendly’ infrastructure, developed and administered by the University of Indonesia (UI) in Jakarta. In 2017, applications were submitted by 619 universities from 76 countries that competed with each other in 6 aggregated areas: infrastructure, energy conservation and climate, waste disposal, water conservation, transport and education. In 2017, among the 30 Russian universities that submitted their applications, Minin University took the 7th place, outstripping the four state-run universities in Moscow and St.Petersburg. The university ranked 232nd in the ‘global’ ranking, 102nd among 313 urban universities and 94th among 216 European universities. Minin University is also a member of the Green Universities Association of Russia. There is the ‘Green Minin’ student association that ran more than 20 eco-education events for students and university staff in 2017. In the past year, the university submitted 1 620 kg of waste paper and other recyclable materials in the framework of the national ‘Sort With Us I’ and ‘Sort With Us II’ quests as part of the ‘Green Universities of Russia’ program.
Diponegoro University (Universitas Diponegoro, UNDIP) is a public university located in the City of Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. The University was founded in 1957, it is the first and the oldest educational institution in the province. It is also a member of the IDGHE association, which is informally called the local ‘Ivy League’. UNDIP is included in the global QS rankings, and it is also ranked 6th in the national rating held by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of Indonesia. 11 faculties of the university employ 1 750 professors, while the number of students exceeds 40 000.
