International Sakharov Environmental Institute

History

International Sakharov Environmental Institute was formed on January 20, 1992 after the resolution of the Republic of Belarus in compliance with the recommendations of the International Sakharov Congress (Moscow, May, 1991) by means of the United Nations Organization.

The necessity of founding such an educational institution appeared as a result of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, when there were practically no specialists professionally trained for minimization of the consequences of radiation accidents. Following the initiatives of the International Congress of memory of Andrei Sakharov “Peace, progress, human rights” and the program “Chernobyl” controlled by the United Nations Organization, Sakharov college was inaugurated in Minsk. The next stage of the development was 1994, when after the resolution of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Belarus the college became independent International Institute of Radioecology. In 1999 after the state accreditation the Institute acquired the status of University. In May 2015 prorector Sergey S. Poznyak was appointed acting rector of the university. He is Doktor nauk in agricultural sciences.

Academics

The university consists of five faculties, as delineated below.

Faculty of environmental monitoring

The Faculty of Environmental Monitoring contains six academic departments: 1) the department of nuclear and radiation safety, 2) the department of environmental management and monitoring, 3) the department of energy efficient technologies; 4) the department of environmental information systems; 5) the department of physics and higher mathematics and 6) the department of philosophy, sociology and economics.

Faculty of environmental medicine

The Faculty consists of eight departments, five scientific-research laboratories and eight students' scientific-research laboratories that deal with a great variety of spheres in modern biology and medicine and correspond to the scientific fields of chairs. More than 80% of the teaching staff are doctors or doctorates in Biology, Chemistry or Medicine, members and corresponding members of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The faculty of environmental medicine prepares students to explore and assess the impact of biogenic and abiogenic environmental factors, on cells, tissues, organs and all body systems (cardiovascular, nervous, endocrine, immune, etc.) from molecular to populational level. The students are provided with practical training, which exposes them to a wide range of methods to diagnose different pathologies, assess effectiveness of the treatment and correct after-effects (e.g. immunocorrection, immunoreactive samples screening), to search for pathologic markers of aggressive environment influence on human body and to master the whole range of modern clinical and diagnostic methods. Faculty students have good practical training not only in the well-equipped university laboratories but also on the base of clinics, in the institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, in clinical and scientific-research institutes of the Ministry of Healthcare and other organizations and establishments of health preventive and therapeutic profile. Ecological outlook of students is greatly formed by the complex bio-ecological summer educational training (1st year), conducted at the educational-scientific station «Volmа», at the base of the Central botanic garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk Zoo, Loshitza and other parks, as well as natural biocenoses. Besides, the students have their summer training practice on the program of junior and middle medical staff in clinics (2nd year students) and practical training according to their specialization (3rd year students). As a rule, the students undergo their work experience training course at the establishments where they will work on their course and diploma papers, and also forthcoming industrial activity. From the moment of formation of the ISEU, the students are taught according to modern progressive training techniques. Special attention is paid to the methodological support of the training process and students' scientific research work. Among the peculiarities of the faculty, a unique concept for training specialists: students in the educational process receive fundamental knowledge in the field of natural (physical and mathematical, chemical) and humanities in combination with deep medical-biological training. They acquire good skills of two or even three European languages, good knowledge in the field of computer technologies and informatics. Faculty graduate is a specialist with a rare combination of professional skills and knowledge of innovative technologies which are in demand nowadays. Our students, graduates, master students and post-graduates become the winners and laureates of the Republican competitions of students' scientific works in the field of natural sciences and receive scholarships of various Republican (Fund of the President of the Republic of Belarus) and international funds (Fund of Vernadskiy V., World federation of scientists, International expert council «Man and biosphere» named after Timofeev-Resovskiy N. etc.). Lecturers, Except of post-graduates, magistrates and students work, undergo their probation periods and study in the leading scientific centers not only in Belarus, Russia and other member countries of CIS but Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland, Canada USA, Israel and others. Based on the results of the scientific research the faculty staff receives the authorship and patents, results of scientific research work are implemented into the training processes and production. Monographs, articles, manuals, text-books (also approved by the Ministry of Education) are constantly published in Russian and other languages. Lecturers, research fellows, post-graduates, graduates and students take a regular participation in a range of international and Republican scientific conferences, symposia and seminars.

Residence halls

International Sakharov Environmental Institute has currently no dorms in property.