President of All-Ukrainian Scientific-Educational Consortium, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, Academician of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine

Dear representatives of the embassies of the European Union, the rectors of the Vishegrad University Association, all guest! I sincerely congratulate You on behalf of the delegation of Ukrainian rectors!

The world economic development is impossible without the scientific innovative system of university training for production and business. Today, universities become integrated into the global community, catalysts of international communication and co-operation of educational, research institutions, production and business. The transformation of universities into a universally recognized source of new knowledge, modern scientific researches, professional resources led to the beginning of a new historical phase of universities' development due to the formation of their own business projects, business incubators, educational enterprises, educational research farms, educational production units built on the capitalization of innovations and transfer technologies.

Іn my opinion, the role of the Vishegrad University Association is particularly, because the Association has already initiated public-private partnership of world universities and creating the discussion platform for developing effective mechanisms for forming and training high qualified specialists-leaders of various production sectors of the world economy.

Such specialists, who are already able to introduce the latest world technologies, use modern technologies, make optimal managerial decisions that minimize the risks of international cooperation in the production and business, intellectually and legally educated, patriots of their states and the multinational community as a whole, protecting their own traditions and respecting human values, are ​​prepared by thousands of scientists and teachers of the All-Ukrainian scientific and educational consortium.

The main purpose of the Consortium's activities are the following: to coordinate the activities of its founders oriented at improving the efficiency of fundamental research, organization, conducting and coordination of applied research in the field of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine; forming a modern effective system of training, retraining and professional development of specialists with higher education for the agrarian sector on the basis of integration and mutual activity of the scientific, educational, innovative and technological potential of the founding members of the Consortium by synthesis and dissemination of advanced scientific developments; creating and introducing new teaching technologies taking into account national and world experience; organizing postgraduate training of specialists and advanced training of scientific-pedagogical personnel.

The structure of the Consortium consists of:

- Vinnytsia National Agrarian University, including 6 departments, 6 colleges, educational-production and research farm and the integrated design center,

- the Institute of Bioenergy Crops and Sugar Beet of National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine, 7 experimental breeding stations

- and the Institute of Food Resources of NAASU with structural subunits.

In 2018, the Consortium includes 81 Doctors of Sciences, 396 Candidates of Sciences, about 15,000 students in 48 specialties, 74 educational programs for training junior specialists, bachelors, masters. 25 specialties for the training doctors of philosophy, 13 specialties for obtaining candidate and doctoral degrees, 11 professional periodicals, 52 branches of university departments in experimental farms and breeding stations, 12 mutual scientific projects, the International Youth Agrarian Forum, more than 18 traditional annual international conferences on the issues of food, environmental, energy and economic security of the world.

Nowadays, the All-Ukrainian scientific and educational consortium is a skilled workers forge for crop cultivation, horticulture, vegetable-growing, livestock, aquaculture, machine-building, forest, food and processing industries of Ukraine.

The main scientific areas of the Consortium’s work are: stimulating the development of adapted technologies for the cultivation of bioenergetic crops and sugar beets; the economic feasibility of biofuel production and consumption in Ukraine; the development of new energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies in crop and livestock production; the creation and introduction of high-performance and economical machine-tractor equipment; the development of ecologically safe (organic) technologies of cultivation of main agricultural crops in accordance with international programs for obtaining environmentally safe, organic products; the development of scientific and applied foundations for the transformation of organizational and economic relations to socially orientated market conditions in the agro-industrial complex; the development of methods of using bacterial, enzyme and bioactive feed additives in feeding farm animals, the development of meat and dairy semi-finished products for children, diet and medical nutrition, the development of dry pectin production technology for the use of ultrasonic energy, etc.

It is important that scientific-pedagogical personnel of the Consortium use the research results in their lectures, create science-based knowledge and participate in the research of grant and state themes of scientific institutes - co-founders of the Consortium, creating an innovative scientific product. They are also scientific consultants in the system of advising, introducing innovations directly into the production.

The Consortium is the base for practice of scientific internship, and, as a result, the level of citation of scientific articles of teachers grew at times, providing the significant scientific results, which became the basis for obtaining state themes and numerous self-supporting researches.

The students’ practical training in the Consortium is another advantage of such a combination of educational and research institutions, where the students are active participants in scientific research, breeding work and research production. According to this principle of training, students' farms and private households are created as real models of the development of the main organizational and economic formations of the agro industrial complex (AIC) of Ukraine. Today it is a full Pilot Project of the Consortium, supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The peculiarity of the Project is that students from different departments. They develop their own business projects, and the main requirements for the projects are: the use of modern scientific-intensive technologies, domestic seeds, methods of organic farming, as well as the efficient use of machinery and equipment, ensuring high level of profitability

The pilot project allows students to acquire their own experience in real production, to work out their own models of professional development at the stage of training.

The international cooperation with foreign partners is a necessary prerequisite for the dynamic development and enhancement of the image of the Consortium and its integration into the community of world educational and scientific institutions. An active educational, practical and research collaboration with 27 universities from 15 countries of the world have been established. Each year, the Consortium hosts more than 50 foreign delegations.

The International School of Biofuels with the aim of studying the best experience in the production and use of renewable energy sources in France, Germany, China has been created and. The teaching staff of the Consortium take internships in USA, Slovakia, France, Sweden, Germany, China, Russia, Poland, South Africa, Albania, Georgia, Montenegro and participate in conferences, training courses on agrarian economics, environmental safety, environmental protection, economic, political and social development of states.

An important step in the development of international relations and mutual exchange in the educational, scientific and cultural spheres was the joining the Association of Universities of the Black Sea Region and the Vishegrad Association of Universities.

Therefore, we can confidently say that the All-Ukrainian Scientific-Training Consortium is a generator of scientific researches, educational innovations and a significant factor in the economic growth of the agrarian business of Ukraine.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the President of the Visegrad Association of Universities, Professor Peter Bielik.A pleasant and effective program introducing the activities of the University of Louisiana and the research centers was created by Professor John Russin, Professor Ivana Tregenza and Professor William Richardson.

I express the gratitude from the Ukrainian rectors to the Embassy of Hungary in the United States.

Thank you.