Due to the coronavirus epidemic situation, the meeting of the Board of Trustees was held online.
In her opening speech, Valentina Matvienko as the Chairwoman of the Federation Council and the Board of Trustees noted:
“We all understand how difficult the pandemic has been for doctors. Unfortunately, the virus is still wreaking havoc, and the burden on medical facilities is overwhelming. Almazov Centre rapidly responded to the coronavirus outbreak; in two years it was reassigned three times to help Covid patients. Besides, the specialists of the Centre were directly involved in the preparation of clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus disease. Algorithms were developed for the outpatient service as well. Dear colleagues, in addressing you today I would like to express my deep gratitude to all doctors, nurses and other staff for their caring attitude towards people, for their dedication, commitment and daily selfless service.”
Director General of Almazov Centre, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeny Shlyakhto gave a presentation on the implementation of the decisions of the previous meeting, in particular on the progress of construction of two large facilities of the Centre and the programme for the development of artificial intelligence in medicine “Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Health Care.”
Evgeny Shlyakhto also spoke about the plans to create the Collective Coworking Hub at Almazov Centre and said that this year the coworking space will be opened to implement the concept of a biomedical youth innovation hub.
The agenda also included the issue of early termination of an educational experiment that has been successfully carried out for 4 years at Almazov Centre and granting the Centre the right to carry out educational activities under specialist training programmes on a regular basis.
Valentina Matvienko supported this initiative. She also praised the fact that Almazov Centre debuted in major global university rankings and was ranked highly.
Evgeny Shlyakhto stressed that thanks to the Board of Trustees and the support of colleagues from the Translational Medicine cluster Almazov Centre has greatly improved its standing and credibility.
St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov thanked the staff of Almazov Centre for helping the fight against the pandemic and also supported the proposal to end the experiment ahead of time and change the work of the institute to regular practice.
“Our city and country will receive one more advanced medical university,” emphasized the governor.
Based on the results of the meeting, the Board members resolved to consider the decisions of the previous meeting as implemented and to approve the projected development strategies for the Centre.
The meeting was attended by Alexander Gutsan, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Northwestern Federal District; Tatyana Semenova, Deputy Minister of Health of the Russian Federation; German Gref, Chairman of the Management Board, Sberbank; Sergey Kulikov, Chairman of the Board of RUSNANO; Elena Shmeleva, head of Talent and Success Educational Foundation.