Moscow Power Engineering Institute

Moscow Power Engineering Institute

Московский энергетический институт (National Research University)
Motto	Energia omnium fundamentum (Энергия — основа всего)
Type	Public
Established	1930
Rector	Nikolay Rogalev
Students	ca. 20,000
Location	Moscow , Russia
Website	www.mpei.ru

Moscow Power Engineering Institute (National Research University) is one of the largest institutions of its kind, and is one of the leading technical universities in the world in the area of power engineering, electronics and IT. It is located in Moscow, Russia, and was founded in 1930. In Russian Federation the education in universities is available in Russian medium only. Therefore, before the main education courses would start, the foreign applicants to university courses should pass the Preliminary course for training in Russian language, followed by the State Test in Russian language (called Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language – TORFL). Fifteen years ago MPEI (as one of few such Russian universities) launched the program of education for foreign students in English medium, however in only one specialty – Computer Engineering. MPEI invested considerate time and resources into this program, they selected a group of leading professors who spoke English fluently, who in turn prepared the educational materials in English. Now MPEI accepts annually one full group of foreign students who speak English fluently for this IT educational program in English Language. All classes here are provided in English, hence the students in this program do not require the preliminary training in Russian language, i.e. the educational period becomes one year shorter. The annual tuition fee for this program however is more expensive, since this program is conducted in English, unlike the rest of the programs.

History

There was a task in the USSR - to prepare 435,000 engineers and technicians in 5 years (1930-1935) during the USSR industrialization period, while their number in 1929 was 66,000. The Moscow Power Engineering Institute (National Research University) was created by uniting several faculties of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University and Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics in the autumn of 1930 in accordance with the order of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy No. 1897 of September 3.

Notable faculty

• Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov — information theory and radar astronomy pioneer, mostly known for having discovered, independently of others (e.g. Edmund Whittaker, Harry Nyquist, Claude Shannon), the sampling theorem in 1933.
• Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov — an eminent Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.
• Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov — a Soviet physicist, the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences from July 1945 until his death. His elder brother Nikolai Vavilov was a famous Russian geneticist.

Notable students

• Alexander Akimov, chief supervisor of Reactor 4 during failed test
• Roman Avdeev, Russian businessman, investor, and philanthropist. Owner of Credit Bank of Moscow
• Nikolay Brusentsov, chief designer of Setun, honoured researcher in Moscow State University
• Vladimir Holstinin, Russian musician, a co-founder of the band called Aria
• Ion Iliescu, 8th President of Romania
• Vsevolod Kukushkin, Russian journalist, writer and ice hockey administrator
• Yan Luguang, Chinese electrical engineer, created China's first tokamak device
• Victor Pelevin Russian fiction writer
• Li Peng, Premier of China
• Farzad Veysi, Razi University Deputy of Research and Technology

Further reading

• A book by Prof. Lev Davidovich Belkind, P.P.Elisarov, V.V. Meshkov and others about the first 50 years of activity of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute (Russian) (Russian: 50 лет Московского ордена Ленина энергетического института имени В.М. Молотова 1905-1955, Белькинд Л.Д., Елизаров П.П., Мешков В.В. и др., Москва, 1955)

External links

• Official site