Visit of Mykola Trofymenko, Deputy Minister of Education and Science to USUST

On 3 December 2025, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Mykola Trofymenko visited the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies. After participating in the regional forum ‘Rebuilding Ukraine through Innovation, Dual Education, and Partnerships between Government, Business, and Universities’, the government delegation arrived at USUST to see the outcomes of the university’s consolidation and the development of its scientific infrastructure. Today, USUST unites strong research schools and a modern material and technical base of several institutes.
 
At the SEI ‘Ukrainian State University of Chemical Technology’, the delegation was welcomed by the university leadership,  Rector Kostiantyn Sukhyi, First Vice-Rector Anatolii Radkevych, vice-rectors, and institute directors. During the discussion, the focus was primarily on the unique consolidation of several higher education institutions, which has made USUST one of the largest technical universities in Ukraine. The USUST integration model is currently considered unprecedented in Ukraine in terms of its scale and the complexity of the merger. Its shared resources and infrastructure enable the university to develop new research centers, educational programmes, and state-of-the-art laboratories that are already contributing to strengthening the region’s human capital.
 
The first location on the tour was the CREATE Research Center, which consists of two scientific laboratories:
  • Laboratory of Innovative Materials and Coating Design, which develops new materials with the properties tailored for chemical technology and mechanical engineering.
  • Laboratory of Functional Materials Science, equipped with modern instruments for studying the physical and mechanical characteristics of materials.
A unique metal 3D printer is installed here. The CREATE Center was established with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the EU Horizon 2020 programme and gives the university the opportunity to conduct experiments at the level of leading European laboratories.
 
The guests were also shown modern equipment acquired in 2025 with the World Bank funding under the project ‘Improving Higher Education in Ukraine for Results’ for the research laboratories of the Department of Chemical Technologies of Ceramics, Glass, and Biomedical Materials, including:
  • Nabertherm high-temperature chamber furnace for firing materials up to 1800 °C;
  • NEXTA STA 300 synchronous thermal analyzer (Hitachi);
  • IRSpirit FTIR spectrometer (Shimadzu).
This equipment has significantly strengthened the university’s capabilities in the field of materials science and has made it possible to expand the range of research activities.
 
The laboratory tour was conducted by Oleksandra Amelina, Senior Research Fellow, Associate Professor, and Senior Researcher at the Department of Chemical Technologies of Ceramics, Glass, and Biomedical Materials, and Stanislav Kovalov, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Energy.
 
After that the guests visited the petroleum products testing laboratory, where they were shown state-of-the-art equipment for determining sulfur content in fuels.
 
The delegation was particularly interested in the unique brewing system for training purposes donated by MOVA LLC to the Department of Technologies of Natural and Synthetic Polymers, Fats, and Food Products. The system enables students of the Food Technology programme to reproduce the full brewing cycle under laboratory conditions. Under the guidance of industry specialists, students get practical skills that are real to production processes from their first years of study.
 
In addition, the department operates a universal automatic Bondareff craft cheese-making unit with a 50-liter capacity, designed for educational and research projects. It enables the production of a wide variety of cheese and allows students to master technological processes ranging from milk pasteurization to cheddar and ricotta preparation. The first results of its use have demonstrated significant potential for enhancing students’ practical training, conducting master classes, and developing cooperation with dairy industry enterprises.
 
The next stop was the Printing and Design Laboratory, established in 2023. The facility houses professional printing equipment that the university acquired through the investment programme for the development of the Printing Industry, Publishing, and Digital Technologies Cluster. Guests were shown a six-color manual screen-printing press used for applying images to promotional, souvenir, and branded products.
 
In addition, under the Memorandum of Cooperation with Metal-Print LLC, the laboratory received a modern color-calibration system that enables students to master real industrial printing quality standards and work with equipment used by leading companies in the sector. This partnership also strengthens the university’s capacity to integrate elements of dual higher education for future printing specialists and designers.
 
Using this equipment, students gain hands-on experience with modern printing technologies, while the university itself has become the base for the Center for Innovative Costs, which is being developed within the framework of the Professional Alternative Dnipro project.
 
As a memento of the visit, the Deputy Minister was presented with souvenir printed products created using the laboratory’s equipment.
 
At the SEI ‘Prydniprovska State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture’, Mykola Trofymenko was introduced to the implementation of another important educational project.
 
An industrial 3D printer has been installed in the production workshop. It is a unique Ukrainian-made device manufactured to custom specifications and purchased by the Ministry of Education and Science with World Bank funding. This equipment enables students to gain practical experience with technologies used in modern construction.
 
The research laboratory ‘Information Technology Center’ presented a system for creating BIM models of buildings, which includes a high-precision Leica 3D scanner, a graphic workstation, specialized software.
 
The system was purchased under the EU Horizon 2020 programme. This infrastructure later enabled the university to win an Erasmus+ grant for the implementation of innovative educational programmes in the digitalization of the construction sector. The equipment is used not only for training but also for real projects: PSACEA specialists, together with the Dnipro City Council, use it to survey buildings damaged as a result of attacks by the russian federation.
 
After visiting PSACEA, the delegation continued its tour at the SEI ‘Dnipro Institute of Infrastructure and Transport’, where they inspected modern testing equipment for determining the mechanical properties of materials, acquired by the sectoral Research Laboratory of Dynamics and Strength of Rolling Stock:
  •  A testing system for determining the mechanical properties of materials under impact, which includes an ADL IRT-S 300 pendulum impact tester, an ADL IM-UV notching machine, an ADL-LTC 60 ultra-low-temperature cryostat, an ADL OP-50 optical projector, and a PC-based computational station;
  • An ADL STM 200 universal electromechanical testing machine for determining the tensile and compressive mechanical characteristics of materials.
The visit of the Deputy Minister became an opportunity to demonstrate how USUST works at the intersection of science, education, and modern technology development, and how comprehensively and systematically the university has evolved following its consolidation. Mykola Trofymenko emphasized that the university is creating exactly the kind of conditions that align with the priorities of state policy today: a modern material and technical base, integration of business into the educational process, real practical training for students, and active participation in the country’s recovery.

More photos from the tour at link