University “Boiling Point”: First Results

The opening of the informal space of teamwork - the university “Boiling Point-SSAU” took place on October 19, 2019. As a permanent communication platform for its functional purpose, “Boiling Point-SSAU” is unique. It is the only “boiling point” opened in the agricultural university of Russia and therefore is focused on the agricultural sector of the economy. Hence its special mission: rebranding of agriculture, positioning the agricultural sector as a high-tech business, creating a SMART-agro demonstration platform, as well as the formation and development of an expert network in the university in the direction of Foodnet.

A substantive analysis of the Boiling Point-SSAU agenda showed that 24 events were held in total for the first month, which are both “peak” formats for meeting people related to achievements, and formats for streaming communication and practices (project sessions, working meetings, etc.).

The most preferred way of organizing events at the Boiling Point-SSAU were master classes. Almost a quarter of all events over the past month took place in this format - 23.1%. The popularity of the workshops is explained by their applied orientation, which allows the speaker to interact with the audience, leading to a deeper understanding of the topic by all participants. Foresight is the second most popular (11.5%). And the third place was shared by several formats at once: lectures (7.7%), round tables (7.7%), meetings of working groups (7.7%), presentations (7.7%) and training seminars (7.7 %).

Statistics of the topics discussed showed that over the past month, most often in the “Boiling Point” events were devoted to education (36%), as well as science and research (20%). This topic is due to the fact that the “Boiling Point” operates on the basis of higher professional education institutions, as well as the fact that almost every fifth event is implemented as part of the SmartAgro-2019 design and educational intensiveness, which began its work in November 2019 in cooperation with the University of NTI "20.35". Intensive is carried out as a multi-month large-scale university project, including weekly educational activities of mentors and project teams of students.

On the whole, an analysis of the activities of the first month of the “SSAU Boiling Point” showed the stability of the communication platform, the variety of topics for events and a significant number of participants in informal communication, as well as the growing interest in the regional community in this format of interaction.

For the effective functioning of the "Point", her team is seriously thinking about the further development strategy of the UTK. We have analyzed the requirements of stakeholders, the strengths and weaknesses of the university as a space for the deployment of a communications platform, the potential growth potential of UTK and the work of other university “Boiling Points” for the same period. As a result, an agenda was formed aimed at developing a common successful future, “Boiling Point-SSAU”:

- identification of the key tracks that determine the uniqueness of our “Boiling Point”, among which such tracks as “Region NTI”, “Digital Economy in Agriculture”, “Project-Educational Intensive”, “Education of the Future”, “Leaders of the Region” are already looming , "Talents" and others;

- growing an ecosystem (community of communities) with its own stable motivated internal and external audiences, capable of generating prototypes of new activities and products;

- accumulation of effective practices of horizontal, mixed and networked interaction of people;

- accumulation of experience of a joint productive organization in the form of various artifacts (archives, video archives, photo archives) and active digital tracks, as a working feedback system of participants in events;

- exchange of resources and links with other “Boiling Points” of the city and university formats.

It is important for us to study needs, manage the agenda, look for interesting speakers, develop new formats, be as useful as possible for key stakeholders and possess the competencies of organizers, experts, communicators. 

Возврат к списку