ASU Students Can Now Take an Externship at the Russian Railways Company.

Konstantin Markelov, the Acting Rector of Astrakhan State University, met with Ruslan Sultanov, the Deputy Head of the Technical Policy Service of the Privolzhskaya Railway.

The parties came to agreement about their plan of joint activities. The Privolzhskaya Railway representative expressed his interest in the university programmes which include project activities and lean production principles, as these aspects are very urgent for the Russian Railways as well.

The main point of the agenda was to discuss an off-site meeting of the Board of Senior Engineers that is planned to be held in December in Astrakhan State University. Apart from the Privolzhskaya Railway experts, the organizers are going to invite Moscow representatives and colleagues from other subdivisions of the Russian Railways.

The Privolzhskaya Railway is planning to consolidate partnership with the leading universities of the regions under its competence — Astrakhan, Volgograd and Saratov — officially. They have already prepared a list of focus areas that can be proposed to ASU experts for performing research.

The ASU Acting Rector noted that all the initiatives fully correspond to the Astrakhan State University strategic plans for development. Konstantin Markelov reminded that the work group on preparing for the RF State Council Presidium meeting had proposed to found a consortium of Caspian and Southern Russia universities on transport and logistics. ASU expressed its willingness to be the main platform for organizing the consortium. In this regard, joint projects on developing the regional railway structure are of high importance.