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BSNRU is the only university in the region participating in the championship, entering eight teams into this years competition, 'CASE-IN – 2018'. This will be the sixth time our university has taken part in organising and hosting the International Engineering Championship in Mining, a role we have undertaken since the competition began. 'CASE-IN' is sponsored by the Energy Ministry of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of ��è��Ƶ and Science, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives as well as other agencies and major companies such as Rosneft, Sibur, Metal-Group, and EuroChem. The opening address was given by the Rector of BSNRU, Professor Oleg Polukhin, who thanked the organisers and partners of 'CASE-IN' for their nurturing of young specialists in the field of geology. He said,

"We are honoured to host a championship of this scale in the university. This is a good opportunity to promote engineering. Pointedly, our university is the leading provider of personnel for the mining companies which are the basis of the region's economy. Participation in such events is a good opportunity to popularise these professions and improve quality in education and science.”

Professor Polukhin added that in 2015 students from BSNRU won the Grand Final and personally received their prize from Alexander Novak, the Russian Federation's Minister of Energy. Last year our organising committee was awarded a 3^rd Degree Diploma for excellence in organising and hosting the qualifying stage of the competition in mining from among the 47 participating universities across the CIS. According to Professor Polukhin, the acute need for highly qualified personnel gives the university an incentive to start new geological and mining disciplines, develop new programs for additional professional education and to create modern training facilities and research laboratories. Currently, the university cooperates with 20 leading ore mining and processing enterprises and related enterprises across Russia. The Professor concluded,

"Our goal is to create a powerful educational base for training miners here at BSNRU, on a par with specialist universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg."

The eight teams, which include post-graduates, received their assignments one day prior to the official opening. This year the central theme of the competition is exploiting and developing the Arctic. 'CASE-IN' involves more than 50 universities, competing in 6 disciplines: mining, geological exploration, electric power, metallurgy, oil and gas production and petrochemistry. Last year 3,500 people took part in the competition, with only 350 reaching the final.