Two young scientists of Ƶ, Associate Professor of the Department of Mathematics Natalia Merzlyakova and graduate student of the Higher School of Technology and Energy Ƶ Margarita Romasheva, became winners of the UMNIK-2025 Innovation Promotion Foundation competition. Each of the winners received a grant of 500,000 rubles for the implementation of their development.
Natalia Merzlyakova, Associate Professor of the Department of Mathematics at St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, presented a project to create an adaptable multicriteria assessment system "RANKO".
"This is a smart program that helps to automatically and honestly build various ratings, for example, of universities, projects, and participants in competitions. She knows how to take into account the opinion of different experts, even if they express it not with specific numerical values, but with words like "more important" or "slightly worse." The web service will work on both PCs and smartphones. It solves the problem of distrust of ratings and subjectivity of assessments," says Natalia Merzlyakova, Associate Professor of Mathematics at St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design.
Margarita Romasheva, a graduate Ƶ student, together with Elena Demyantseva, an associate professor at the Department of Physical and Colloidal Chemistry, submitted a project for a competition to create methods for processing and recycling solutions after obtaining microcrystalline cellulose.
"Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) can be obtained from cellulose, a powdered product widely used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetology and the production of composite materials. However, during mass production of MCCS, enterprises face the problem of forming a significant volume of waste solution that does not return to the production cycle. Our scientific laboratory has developed a method for cleaning this solution with partial return of chemicals to the process. The solution will reduce the environmental burden of production and reduce the cost of production," says Margarita Romasheva, a graduate student at the Higher School of Technology and Energy at St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design.
The award ceremony took place at the BARCAMP 20.35 business forum. The award was presented by Ivan Bortnik, Advisor to the Director General of the Innovation Promotion Foundation. Now the winners need to complete the project within 12 months, apply for registration of intellectual property rights, develop a business plan for the project and complete a pre-acceleration program.