The meeting of YSU Board of Trustees took place

At the beginning of the meeting of the YSU Board of Trustees, Gor Ohanyan, postgraduate student of the YSU Institute of Physics, proposed to include in the presented agenda the issue of organizing and conducting a competition for the position of the director of the Ijevan branch. The proposal was put to the vote and was not accepted by the Board of Trustees with the majority of votes. Suren Papikyan, the President of YSU Board of Trustees, noted that during the next year, the competition for the position of YSU Ijevan Branch Director will be discussed and held.

After voting in favor of the presented agenda, the members of Board of Trustees listened and evaluated YSU Rector's annual report on the implementation of the 2022-2023 academic year activity and strategic plan.

Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, the YSU Rector, stated that during the 2022-2023 academic year, a number of processes have been launched in YSU, the long-term impact of which will significantly improve the quality of educational and research processes, create an opportunity to take systematic and comprehensive approach of reforms.

According to YSU Rector, the implemented actions are based on student-centered education, interdisciplinary approach, approximation of educational and research processes, development of internal environment and connection with the outside world.

H. Hovhannisyan noted that during the reporting period, all educational programs were revised and new programs were included. Four programs received international accreditation, which was an unprecedented result in the field of RA higher education. YSU STEM High School has started its activity. "The new procedure for organizing the educational process has entered into force, monitoring of educational programs has been carried out, and the student's weekly auditorium load has been reduced. In order to ensure interdisciplinarity in the educational programs, modulated courses were included, the range of optional general and professional courses was expanded."

He stated that the courses organized for foreign students, including for the purpose of learning Persian and Russian, were of a continuous nature. "Students from Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh universities participated in courses at YSU. In the near future, summer and winter schools are planned for students of partner universities and other interested persons. In addition, for the first time YSU hosted three master's students from one of the world's leading educational institutions, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). They conducted workshops on various topics for YSU bachelor's students for a month."

H. Hovhannisyan informed that 1494 articles, 16 monographs, 36 educational manuals and 14 textbooks were published during the reporting period. 243 of the articles were published in authoritative international journals included in the "Scopus" indexing database.

"For the second year, internal scientific grants have been established at YSU, 10 internal scientific grants have been established in the reporting year. Grants for scientific business trips have also been established. During the reporting period, international and intra-university digital platforms such as "Scopus", "Research4Life", "EBSCO", international databases, as well as other authoritative electronic resources became available to the YSU community," said YSU Rector.

He noted that during the reporting period, 28 new scientific grant programs with a total fund of 710 million AMD were launched, scientific equipment of 1.2 billion AMD was purchased, 27 auditoriums, 3 laboratories and 18 workrooms were renovated.

"Within the framework of YSU reforms, we have worked on building faculty workrooms. We have implemented the training of the teaching and auxiliary staff which we consider an important component stage of the process․ As a result, the scope of the employees' functions has been specified and expanded, and the salary has been increased by 45 percent," the Rector noted.

The YSU Board of Trustees unanimously assessed the rector's annual activity report as satisfactory, then unanimously approved the YSU structure, the staff list, as well as the annual estimate of income and expenses for 2024. By the way, while presenting the latter, the YSU Rector mentioned that in 2024 it is planned to increase salary of employees by 10%, which will come into effect from September, as well as it is planned to provide the 13th salary at the end of the year and a bonus of 50% paid in the summer.

In addition, H. Hovhannisyan stated that the estimate provides funding for internal grant programs, re-equipment of auditoriums and laboratories, acquisition and overhaul of smart boards, and other processes.

H. Hovhannisyan emphasized the increase of additional scientific and educational services required by entrepreneurs as a significant achievement. According to him, the volume of the mentioned services are increasing by almost 100 percent compared to the previous year.

With the last issue on the agenda, the Board of Trustees approved the contracts of the "Yerevan State University" foundation exceeding the limit of 100 million AMD.