Mathematics education. Ilya Chistyakov: mathematics is closer to culture than to science. In this case, which regions work well?

The founder and President of the Time of Science Foundation is St. Petersburg mathematics teacher Ilya Aleksandrovich Chistyakov

The uniqueness of the Time of Science Foundation lies in the fact that it begins its work without constant support from major patrons of the arts, in fact due to the efforts of the St. Petersburg teacher and his students, who are aware of the value and significance of the undertakings of the President of the Foundation for the development of Russian fundamental education and science.

Ilya Aleksandrovich Chistyakov is a well-known St. Petersburg mathematics teacher, director of the private educational institution OiDO "Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education", the initiator of many living and independent projects in the field of education - the city research Olympiad "NON-STOP Mathematics", the international team competition "Tournament of Young Mathematicians", a biological competition “Natural Selection”, and finally one of the largest all-Russian competitions for scientific research among schoolchildren, the “Baltic Science and Engineering Competition”.

The effectiveness of his activities as a mathematics teacher is associated with the education of a whole galaxy of young mathematicians. Among its three hundred graduates there are about 40 candidates of science, and up to half of the students from each graduating class become graduate students.

11 graduates of I.A. Chistyakov received the V.A. Rokhlin Prize for the best young mathematicians. 5 graduates out of approximately fifty laureates received the Gazprom Neft JSC award. Sergei Olegovich Ivanov, a 2003 graduate, is a laureate of the Prize. V.A. Rokhlina, in 2014 he was recognized by the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society as the best young mathematician, in 2015 he became a laureate of the Gazprom Neft OJSC prize. Thanks to his efforts as the leader of scientific seminars and special courses at LNMO, more than 10 graduates of the school are pursuing scientific careers. Thus, I.A. Chistyakov’s students continue his efforts to develop the research abilities of schoolchildren in the field of mathematics and natural sciences.

In the period from 2000 to 2015, I.A. Chistyakov prepared 2 9 winners of the Intel-ISEF World Review-Competition of Scientific Works for Schoolchildren. By decision of NASA, the Minor Planets of the Solar System were named after five LNMO graduates.

No more than 5% of its graduates go abroad to work, while many pursue scientific careers. 20 graduates annually work as part of the teaching staff of classes in the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education.

Students of I. A. Chistyakov traditionally prepare scientific projects in mathematics, physics, programming in grades 10 - 11 and perform at the Baltic scientific and engineering competition, the All-Russian competition “Junior”, “Avangard”, Sakharov Readings, the World Review-Competition of Scientific and Engineering student achievements in the USA, International Conference and young scientists ICYS. Up to 50 students from the school founded by I.A. Chistyakov win prizes at these competitions every year.

All this is the result of work in accordance with the concept created by I.A. Chistyakov in 1992 within the framework of the scientific center “Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education” in St. Petersburg State Technical University. The development of systematic forms of involving schoolchildren in scientific activities and the abandonment of the Olympiad component in mathematics education are the main elements of this concept.

The concept of the relationship and integration of general, additional education and scientific activities assumes that schoolchildren who enter specialized classes of a public school simultaneously receive education in an institution of additional education and, based on the education received, have the opportunity to attend scientific seminars and special courses and create scientific research under the guidance of a scientific leader. Such an educational system, based on the network interaction of schools of different structures, makes it possible to provide high-quality specialized education in 4 years and attract them to research activities, shaping the character of a young scientist. This system can be replicated in the regions.

I.A. Chistyakov – authororiginal methods of teaching mathematics and Kconcepts of the relationship and integration of basic, additional education and scientific activities, in accordance with which the classes of the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education operate. In 2008, the Regional Expert Council approved and recommended for use in the North-West region of the Russian Federation the Concept and programs of pre-profile and specialized training (mathematical specialization), authored by Ilya Aleksandrovich Chistyakov, in collaboration with a team of teachers of LNME V.D. Mikhailov, Polishchuk G.I., Dmitriev D.V. and Shtukenberg D.G.

I.A. Chistyakov created the Time of Science Foundation to develop the scientific component in school and university education, to support real projects that effectively change the Russian education system.

A well-known teacher is sure that a teacher should be paid for the fact that his students become decent people

ILYA ALEXANDROVICH CHISTYAKOV was born in Leningrad in 1961.
Graduated from Physics and Mathematics School No. 239. Graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics of the Pedagogical Institute named after. A. I. Herzen.
He worked in a number of schools, as well as in the city Palace of Youth Creativity. He led clubs and organized conferences. Under his leadership, in 1991, a team of schoolchildren from our city took absolute first place at the XXV All-Union Olympiad in Mathematics. In the early 1990s, together with like-minded people, he founded the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education: “continuity” - in the relationship between basic, additional education and scientific activity. As a result, 27 winners of the World Review-Competition of Scientific Works of Schoolchildren for 2000 - 2011.
Chairman of the organizing committee of the Baltic Science and Engineering Competition, which is considered a stage of the World School Scientific Work Competition.

The titles of Ilya Chistyakov, the head of the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education (it is based in schools No. 286 and 564), cannot be listed: twice Soros teacher, winner of the competition for the best teachers of Russia in 2006, three times winner of the competition for teachers of mathematics and physics of the Dynasty scientific foundation. You can simply say: NASA named small planets after Chistyakov’s five students. And with all his awards, Ilya Alexandrovich is one of the most inconvenient people for the education system.

Non-performance indicators
— Ilya Aleksandrovich, you criticize mathematical olympiads, but we just pulled you out of a school tour...
- What should we do? But the Olympiads are experiencing a crisis: previously, at least 5-6 thousand people from each region participated in the Olympiads in mathematics. And now, God forbid, 300. For several years I was the chairman of the organizing committee of the city Olympiad and accepted tons of waste paper. Children can't solve problems!
But other children appeared - professional Olympiad participants, they are trained in standard Olympiad ideas in clubs. The number of these ideas is limited, someone even counted: 80-something. It is no coincidence that the Chinese began to win entirely in the world mathematical Olympiad movement: they work out all the options with Asian tenacity.

- Are the Olympics really useless?
— Once upon a time it was very useful: it allowed us to find talented guys with whom university mathematicians then studied. And now - the Olympics for the sake of the Olympics.
In addition, there is some kind of curse: most winners of status Olympiads do not reach special heights in life. Once upon a time, the Olympiad was not a measure of accountability, but now the official understands perfectly well that the winner of the Olympiad will cover up the complete collapse of education in the region.

- You can’t cover up the collapse: there is another indicator - “failure” on the Unified State Exam...
- This is not an indicator. The passing grade for the Unified State Exam is assigned incorrectly: first, all work is checked, and then a score is “assigned” as unsatisfactory so that there are fewer “fails.” Otherwise, what should we do with teenagers with “failures”? They will neither study nor work.

- What is the alternative?
— Variety of examination forms. Anyone who wants can take the Unified State Exam; but there should be an exam in the traditional form, and competitions, and scientific papers, and olympiads, despite the controversial nature of many of them. There should be a system of recommendations: if a professor works with a student and recommends him to a university, this should be enough.

- Yes, it seems that now the portfolio is also taken into account...
- ... and the feeling that students and teachers are doing nothing but collecting portfolios. There is no need to think - he has collected papers about his activities, and often pseudo-activities... And the teacher begins to work with something new not out of curiosity, but with the question “what will I get from this?” The great goes away, what remains is practicality.

Disputes over physicists and lyricists are far-fetched
- You are a pessimist!
- Now yes. I believe that Russia has no future with this approach to education. This year, half of our laboratory’s graduates will go not to Russian universities, but to American and Western European ones. This is the first time! Moreover, those universities invite our guys. And the country is losing its most promising people. But the country is more concerned not with talented children, but, for example, with problems with migrant children.

— Do you have “outsiders”?
— Gadzhi Osmanov last year became a prize-winner of the world scientific competition “Intel ISEF”. There are Ruslan Namazov, Hovik Khachikyan. They are first-generation St. Petersburg residents, their parents came here, work, raise children...

— In recent years, it has been difficult to recruit math classes. Is the demographic situation to blame or is there a strain on abilities?
- Everyone wants the best and without difficulty. A working child is a “nerd”, a “nerd”, the main curse word in a children’s group for a hard worker.
Foreigners are pointing fingers at our education reforms. We broke the system of mathematical and physical education and at the same time introduced something that we have historically never had developed, all these economic schools. Yes, we have never had a strong economic science! Since Peter I, navigation and digital schools were established.

— But at one time everyone was happy: there is no longer any need to torment humanities students with mathematics...
— There is such a definition: no matter who does anything, a mathematician will do it better. You will begin to understand the biographies of cultural and artistic figures (it would seem, humanists) - here are the ones: as a rule, in childhood there was a mathematics school.

These debates about physicists and lyricists are far-fetched: in our laboratory, many children study in music schools, there are winners of international music competitions, there are artists, there are those who write poetry and prose. Mathematics is a layer of culture like many other things. It is closer to art even than to science.

— Children don’t read now. What about your mathematicians?
“I don’t see the need to gasp that reading a real book is dying.” Yes, he is dying. The laboratory has a gorgeous library, but I understand that children read less. But they use electronic libraries. And in any case, we make sure that they do not miss the Russian classics - our 11th graders read everything that is required according to the program, plus something beyond it.

Without illusions
— The laboratory, together with the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of St. Petersburg State University, holds the Baltic Science and Engineering Competition for schoolchildren every year...
— The next one will be held at the end of January - beginning of February, you can already register works on the website. But the situation with the competition is not easy: yes, it has a high status, this is a stage of a worldwide competition. But it is not so important for the Ministry of Education and Science. The main criterion for the ministry is the mass nature of the competition, and not its quality. There are competitions with primitive works from Wikipedia fables, but they are favored by the minister because they are massive and because “children from distant villages participate in them.” But by praising according to such criteria, we show a talented child that society is unfair. And after that we encourage you to stay in Skolkovo?

- It’s hard for you with such principles!
- Easily! Because there are no illusions. The illusions ended when I, very young, with an excellent education (I am not exaggerating: my teachers were Academician A.D. Alexandrov, Corresponding Member D.K. Fadeev, Professor V.S. Vvedensky - one of the closest students of Academician S.N. Bernstein), one old teacher decided to teach the skill and invited her to her lesson. Untalented. But something else shocked me: when the lesson ended and the children galloped away, some frail girl came up to her, pulled out a hefty piece of meat from her bag, threw it on the table: her mother handed it to her.

- Fine. Well, what are your suggestions about the education system?
— First of all, it is not the salary that needs to be increased. You will raise your salary, but this is not protection from an unruly boorish parent. We need to start by establishing basic order: let's create a system like justices of the peace to sort out school conflicts. A teenager who was rude to a teacher must go through a magistrate. A parent who hits a teacher should get more than a seasoned criminal.

This, of course, requires reciprocal respect from the school for the child’s personality. And to the school's responsibility for teaching. As soon as we make learning the main thing and stop talking about “educational conversations”, everything will fall into place.

As for the salary, the teacher should be paid not for doing something, but for what he did. His students do not necessarily have to be winners of Olympiads; they simply must become not lumpen, but decent people.

Interviewed by Alexandra SHEROMOVA

The director of the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education, mathematics teacher Ilya Chistyakov and his associates created this non-state educational institution of continuing education in 1992. Students are selected at city and regional Olympiads, and simply talented and gifted students are offered to study in the laboratory; they can try to pass the interview themselves and enter the laboratory to study. The laboratory closely interacts with the secondary school; studying there involves a combination of basic, additional education and scientific activities. In middle school, the student receives fundamental in-depth training; in high school, he chooses a topic for scientific research and conducts it independently.

ILYA CHISTYAKOV says that he wants to create on the basis of the laboratory not a local structure, but a basis for mathematical education for the entire country.

Ilya Chistyakov We are grateful to those school directors who understand the value of fundamental education

— Why does today’s student need mathematics?

- The fact is that no matter what field of activity a person is engaged in, a mathematician will do this job better. Because specialized mathematical education incredibly contributes to the formation of a systematic approach to a question and the ability to abstract. In addition, the transfer principle works when learning. If a person masters one high model of human knowledge, it is easier for him to work in other areas. Therefore, a child who studies mathematics, compared to his peers, has a better chance of building his own business career, not necessarily even in fundamental science, but perhaps in applied science, business, management, marketing, and so on. It is no coincidence that very strong mathematicians are now entering, for example, the Higher School of Economics. Because this is an area of ​​knowledge where our country now primarily needs highly qualified personnel, and the guys feel that they are in demand.

— Has the concept of teaching mathematics changed?

- Has changed. Firstly, because the teaching of mathematics in our country has seriously deteriorated. This is facilitated by a number of reasons: firstly, “in Soviet times” mathematics was one of the most popular subjects, because there was a great need for highly qualified engineers with high mathematical training, defense industry, physics, chemistry, natural sciences - biology, genetics - all this needed qualified personnel. But with the end of the Soviet system, it turned out that there were other attractive areas of human knowledge. And mathematicians had to turn into traveling salesmen who had to sell a little mathematics to young people. They fundamentally turned out to be unable to convince the guys of its importance at that time. In addition, during perestroika, and then in the crazy nineties, we destroyed virtually the entire methodological school. After all, there were remarkable developments for teaching serious mathematics already at school, associated with the enlargement of didactic units, when the main unit of teaching became not a lesson, but an enlarged unit such as a topic. Now we have actually returned to the century before last, to the class-lesson system. Finally, there was a huge change in the teaching staff, the corps of mathematics teachers. Old, good, knowledgeable teachers naturally leave, their places are taken either by students of pedagogical universities (the degradation of teaching there is a special discussion) or by overqualified engineers. The functions of training and retraining have been transferred to universities, where the professor or associate professor who conducts these retraining courses has never worked in a school and may not actually understand the goals and objectives facing the future teacher. All this led to the degradation of the teaching corps. Formally speaking, there is no one to teach now. Look at what is happening in schools: in fact, two-thirds of children do not touch the profile options in the Unified State Exam; they leave having completed only the system of tasks B, which corresponds to the level of either primary school in the ninth grade, or the fifth-sixth grade in the eleventh. That is, the state is actually uselessly throwing away money to ensure that a child, after the fifth or sixth grade, remains in school for another five years in the field of mathematics education. The big problem of the modern school is that teachers cannot find a language with their students to convince them of the value of the classical foundation of education and captivate them with it, because they themselves often do not speak it.

- How to be?

“That’s why we exist, to the extent possible, not only to correct this situation—this requires state political will, but to give at least a small number of students the opportunity to study and do mathematics the way it really needs to be done.” : not just by solving preparatory problems for the Unified State Exam and Olympiad problems, but by design and research activities. Our school was created in order to attract children who, already from school, are motivated to engage in serious science, so that they can receive a fundamental education, the ability to work independently and write their first scientific research under the guidance of a scientific supervisor, so that they are given a serious professional task. Each schoolchild who comes to us can choose a topic for scientific work, we look for a scientific supervisor for him, and he first begins to study in small seminars with a young candidate of sciences or graduate student and, after listening and working on such courses, passing several theoretical minimums, gets the opportunity to attend to more powerful seminars, where serious scientific problems are already posed. And it is there that he becomes interested in one direction or another and begins active work in this area, achieving certain successes. Further, the work is published, not only in popular science, but quite often in serious scientific journals that belong to professional mathematical communities, in the electronic journal "Archive", where scientists exhibit their new results. And, secondly, students speak at scientific conferences for schoolchildren and students. There are several of these in Russia, and the international ones are, of course, ISEF, a global competition that brings together more than 6 million schoolchildren from more than 60 countries. This year, our schoolboy Savely Novikov received a fourth degree Grand Award for his work in mathematics. But what turned out to be more pleasant for us was that the American mathematical community awarded Savely the second, and his classmate Dima Mikhailovsky the third, Carl Menger Prize. This is very important because, firstly, the guys get the right to publish in professional readable journals without a lengthy procedure, and secondly, they have further research prospects because they have many correspondents and scientific communication, which is very important, since mathematics is a collective science.

— How is public-private partnership organized in Russia in the field of mathematics? How is the funding going?

— Firstly, we are grateful to those school principals who now understand the value of fundamental education. Now, public school principals who want to give their children a serious education, but who have neither the professional staff nor the ability to finance these projects, are happy to respond to our proposal to create a public-private partnership. The children study at school, receive a fundamental education within the framework of the state program and are additionally engaged in seminars and additional classes in the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education, which we provide as a private educational institution - a structure with a license for additional education. Our school currently consists of three groups: mathematics and information science, chemical biology, and engineering and technology. Our children study from 5th to 11th grades, and specialization occurs at the 7th grade level, when they are finally assigned to these specialties. As for financing, we work with parents under a very moderate agreement. I can say, without revealing financial secrets, that if a parent turned to the services of a government organization, then for this money the child could study for no more than four hours, but with us he studies from 10 to 14 hours.

Secondly, we have a Fund for supporting scientific and scientific-technical activities of young scientists “Time of Science”, the purpose of which is to find funds to finance our projects, including the Baltic Scientific and Engineering Competition, one of the largest competitions in Russia, and the international competition "Tournament of Young Mathematicians", in which 14 European countries participate, Olympiad "Non-Stop Mathematics", summer specialized camps at major universities, internships, trips to open events of a number of mathematical universities, chemical and biological events, quests, seminars, scientific competition “Natural selection”, now we will create a “School of Engineering Thinking” - engineering classes in a public school. The foundation is looking for sponsors and partners for us - at the moment they are ITMO and Polytechnic universities - it carries out crowdfunding, in particular, on Boomstarter we have now raised one and a half million rubles for the projects of the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education - this is a fairly powerful response from our country, that is, those interested in educational projects of ordinary people. A number of companies are now considering our projects as priorities. For example, this year's Baltic Scientific and Engineering Competition was supported by the Gazprom Neft company. But we want to create not some kind of local prosperity, but a structure that will work for the whole country. We must strive to ensure that scientific youth turn their faces towards Russia, we must organize a world competition so that they go and see the culture and science of our country and the prospects that Russia provides.

— We really like that our graduates are not only mathematicians. Among them there are wonderful engineers who work in serious design bureaus. The best Polytech student of 2015, the best young mathematician of 2014 in St. Petersburg are our graduates. A number of our guys are doing business, and we are very pleased, because this is a way to change our country for the better. One of the laboratory winners of the Baltic competition founded a powerful international company; it has representative offices in 40 countries. Many companies that have changed the face of our world—Jobs, Bill Gates, and Zuckerberg—grew from youth teams that were formed either in the last years of college or in the first years of university. And we want to act as a technology park that will be a catalyst for the creation of such youth groups. We have a lot of talented young people, and we are seriously concerned that their future scientific future will be connected with our country. It must be said that practically no one leaves; our graduates mostly enter our universities and stay to work here. But, on the other hand, when a person has already become a postdoc, we cannot be responsible for him, because everything here depends on the state: either it creates conditions for the life of its talented youth, they are in demand and then stay to work here, or it does not create, and then they leave. And one probably won’t raise one’s hand to condemn them.

— As you said, things are not going well with the teaching staff. Where can you find a modern teacher?

- Nowhere. The problem of teaching staff in the country is huge. It is also difficult for us to form a teaching staff; we are very happy when we find like-minded people. These are scientists who have teaching abilities - and this is rare among armchair scientists. These are teachers who, while studying at pedagogical universities or universities, conducted active scientific work, participated in clubs, seminars, and had experience working in specialized camps for schoolchildren. Finally, these are our graduates. It is no coincidence that Saveliy Novikova’s supervisor, Seryozha Ivanov, is a graduate of the laboratory.

— What would you like to add?

— And I’d like to add our slogan, which we love very much: “In St. Petersburg, get smarter.”

“In the 5th grade, the teacher decided to hold a math holiday for the first time. Our class was preparing to solve tricky problems. They had to respond quickly, running up to the table with the task. Naturally, I was placed last in the relay race as the strongest student in the class. Our class was lagging behind the parallel class. They solved problems a little faster, we were literally a few seconds behind.

I ran up to the jury table, followed by the students of class 5 “A”. Panting and at the same time preparing to solve the most difficult problem, I took the card... It was written on it: “Carefully sign your math notebook”... It’s difficult to convey my disappointment in the competition. From then on, I began to study mathematics on my own, paying very little attention to school and its teachers. And in my teaching I actively avoid formal techniques - I only use them forcedly.

About lectures

Once I skipped a lecture by Academician Alexander Danilovich Alexandrov, a famous St. Petersburg geometer. A place where one could sit and relax was, of course, a coffee buffet.

Together with the same truants, we burst in there and see Academician Alexandrov drinking coffee. We boldly approached him with the question: “Well, have you never skipped lectures?” To this he replied: “I played truant, but I knew that this was followed by punishment.” When there were quite a lot of such truant students, on the last day before the session they rushed after Alexandrov with the request: “Take the test from us!”

The students quickly minced after him, and he, walking imposingly along the corridor, turned, looked condescendingly, walked away to the doors and took a few steps along the sheer wall. He was also a mountain climber. “Whoever places a shoe print higher than mine will immediately receive credit,” he loudly proclaimed. There were no takers. These are the things that most motivated me to study mathematics. What attracts me most to science are individuals, not the subject and its study.

About science

The concept of combining general, additional education and science was born to me and my colleagues at the Palace of Pioneers back in the 90s. Then there were many talented schoolchildren for whom studying according to the school curriculum was not enough; they wanted something more. We began to conduct scientific seminars and special courses for mathematicians, developing a special approach to teaching that does not allow solving problems according to any known algorithm.

About the system

In our system, the main thing was theory, the study of complex mathematical concepts, analysis of complex books with explanations in front of an interested audience. It turned out that all this is feasible for schoolchildren. And the guys began to create real scientific research. Then it turned into a whole system when we began to find interesting teachers of school subjects, recommend them to the director of the school where we worked, supplement the children’s education with special classes in mathematics, physics, programming, and offer the children complex but feasible topics for scientific research.

About the laboratory

In 1992, the Laboratory of Continuing Mathematical Education (LCME) was born - this is a school operating on the principle of network interaction between institutions of different structures with the aim of training future scientists and mathematicians. At first, I taught one class in three years using this system; since 2002, we began enrolling children in grades 8-9 every year. And then our great victories began. Since 2002, LNMO has trained 29 winners of the Intel ISEF World Competition of Scientific and Engineering Achievements of Schoolchildren and more than 50 finalists. This competition is also called the “Little Nobel Prize”. I don’t know if there are still schools where there are about 400 graduates, among them up to 20 students won scientific competitions annually, about 40 became candidates of science, and from some classes, half of the graduates entered graduate school.

In other words, thanks to the original organizational model of training, we were able to educate a whole galaxy of young mathematicians. Since they constantly participate in our projects and supervise the work of schoolchildren, they rarely leave the country.

About difficulties

Just eight years ago, the situation for my graduates was very difficult. One of the LNMO graduates, while preparing his dissertation and studying in graduate school, gave lectures on functional analysis at one of the most famous St. Petersburg universities, receiving only about 5 thousand rubles for half the rate. Illness, disappointment, the need to help the family - all this was very depressing. He didn’t want to leave, but he received a lucrative invitation to Sweden - and after getting married, he went there to work at the department. Now most of my graduates stay to work at the P.L. Chebyshev Laboratory, get jobs in large research institutes (Krylov Institute, for example), and receive grants. They have really become in demand here and have a rich circle of scientific communication. It’s a shame that the guys started receiving support not so long ago, but it’s nice that we didn’t miss them and sent them to science on time.

About education

It is also upsetting that the state still supports the tip of the iceberg—established scientists, winners of all-Russian and international Olympiads, and talented students. But in order for them to appear, it is necessary to engage with the middle level, to educate future scientists from school. It turns out that we are doing this instead of the state, although it would be more correct for the state to invest in quality education, raise the general level of education, and private structures to support the brightest.

About projects

We are doing many large-scale projects within the framework of our school - the all-Russian poster competition "Baltic Science and Engineering Competition", the international Tournament of Young Mathematicians - a team mathematical battle for solving research problems, the city Olympiad for solving research problems "NON-STOP Mathematics", a summer mathematics school , biological competition “Natural Selection”. This requires enormous volunteer resources in the absence of government support. All these are real projects designed not to identify a talented child, but to develop his abilities and attract him to scientific creativity.

About the fund

For such events, of course, you need an operator and you need help. That is why graduates of LNMO created the Foundation for Support of Young Scientists “Time of Science” and began work to find funds for the implementation of complex science-intensive projects. This is a fundraising fund, so we expect that its development will be helped by everyone who is interested in the development of our country. Our main operating principle: we do not focus on talent, but develop abilities.

About the competition

The Baltic Science and Engineering Competition is the main event of the new Foundation. This year we involve not only 300 participants with scientific projects in the competition, but also spectators - more than 1000 St. Petersburg schoolchildren. Company leaders will tell them about their innovative developments, hold games, master classes, and suggest topics for schoolchildren’s scientific research. There will be a whole action that will allow children to see that they are interested in them.

About the laureates

From experience I can say that real scientific achievements are available to both child prodigies and those who have been well taught. I am sure that Nobel laureates from our country are only a matter of time. We make a serious investment in each child and are committed to working tirelessly to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to realize their potential.”

Help the Foundation for Support of Young Scientists “Time of Science” -