Russian Shipbuilding Education Under Spotlight At IMarEST Lecture

Shipbuilding education in Russia from Peter The Great’s training experience in Holland and England at the end of the 17th century until the present time will come under the spotlight on 15 December, when Professor Kirill V Rozhdestvenskiy DSc CEng FIMarEST delivers the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) Gordon Hodge Memorial Lecture.
The early evening Lecture will be held at the Institute’s headquarters and will be followed by the IMarEST Christmas Party in support of the IMarEST Guild of Benevolence, and the launch of their Titanic Centenary Appeal, at the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers, next door to the Institute’s offices in Coleman Street in the heart of the City of London.
“The Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute (LSI), now Saint Petersburg State Marine Technical University (SMTU), has made a large contribution, delivering highly qualified engineers and managers for the Russian shipbuilding industry for more than 80 years,” explains Professor Rozhdestvenskiy. “As well as tracing developments since the time of Peter The Great, our ‘Tsar Carpenter’, onwards, I will be describing the characteristics of the academic process at SMTU and its strong connections with the shipbuilding industry.”
The biennial IMarEST Gordon Hodge Memorial Lecture is aimed at discussing and focussing attention on how to attract young people to a career in engineering in general and marine engineering in particular.
“It is essential that we make engineering attractive to young people – everything in society has a debt to engineering; and marine engineering underpins world trade, world security, and enables economic and sustainable development of the sea,” says Professor Chris Hodge FREng, CEng, FIMarEST, Chief Electrical Engineer of BMT Defence Services, IMarEST’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and son of the late Gordon Hodge after whom the series of lectures is named. “I know my father would have been fascinated by Professor Rozhdestvenskiy’s lecture and by the impressive 80-year track record of the Saint Petersburg State Marine Technical University., which has helped lead generations of young men and women into the shipbuilding industry.”
Professor Rozhdestvenskiy graduated from Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute (LSI) now SMTU in 1969 as an engineer in hydroaerodynamics. He obtained his PhD in 1972 and DSc in 1982 from LSI with dissertations on advanced marine vehicles with dynamic support.
A full professor from 1984, he was awarded the IMarEST Denny Gold Medal in 1998 for the best paper presented by branches in 1996-7. He has been a Fellow of the Institute since 1999.
He was Dean of the Faculty of Shipbuilding and Ocean Engineering of the LSI-SMTU 1984-1994; Chairman of the Department of Mathematical Modelling from 1984 until the present; and is Vice Rector for International Science and Education – a role he took on in 1999.  Professor Rozhdestvenskiy is a Member of Scientific Councils and International Conference Committees and in 2000 was awarded the title of Honoured Scientist of the Russian
The IMarEST Christmas Party
The IMarEST Christmas Party at the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers (next door to IMarEST headquarters) promises to be a truly festive evening in one of the City’s most charming Livery Companies. Guests will enjoy drinks, a festive buffet and be entertained by a live band.
“The evening will provide a great chance to entertain valued clients, meet old friends, reward employees, and provides a perfect opportunity to celebrate the festive season with friends and family,” explains Dr Marcus Jones, IMarEST’s Chief Executive. “Importantly too the evening will raise funds for the IMarEST Guild of Benevolence who will launch their Titanic Centenary Appeal during the event.”
The Guild of Benevolence originated from the Fund set up nearly a hundred years ago to provide vital assistance for the families of the 35 marine engineers who lost their lives aboard the RMS Titanic after she sank in mid-Atlantic on 15 April 1912. Initially funds went to orphanages and schools, but the charity’s remit was widened to encompass the needy families of marine engineers lost in both World Wars, and it now provides support for marine engineers and their dependents.
Surplus funds and money received in donations through the Christmas Party will start the Titanic Centenary Appeal fund raising ball rolling and enable the Guild to continue its work in providing long and short-term assistance to deserving marine engineers and their dependents around the world.
“The Guild has done a marvellous job throughout its history, and is as needed today as it was a hundred years ago, I urge all to give generously to this important fund that deals with heartbreaking stories on a day-to-day basis,” says Dr Jones.