*4.3. Digitalization*

In the last decade, the most important factor in changing the training process is the intensive digitalization of all areas of socio-economic development without exception.

Until the second half of the 2010s, the Russian oil and gas sector considerably lagged behind in the sphere of digitalization compared to other industries, as well as from world leaders—the USA, Norway, France, etc. [48] A qualitative leap occurred with the development of di fficult hydrocarbons in the Arctic which demands a change in methods of exploration and production resources—using digital technology. So, in 2015, the RAS Institute of oil and gas problems and I. M. Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas initiated the development of a program for digitalization and intellectualization of the Russian oil and gas industry, which was reflected in the departmental project "Digital energy" as part of implementing the national program "Digital economy of the Russian Federation", adopted in 2017 [49].

Digitalization is designed to reduce the costs associated with hydrocarbon exploration and production in extremely di fficult regional conditions (climatic, geological, demographic, and technical), as well as with the development and production of special equipment [50]. It helps to reduce the environmental consequences of human presence in the region—in the future, to minimize as much as possible, and ideally to reduce its presence to zero, thereby ensuring technological and environmental safety by reducing the probability of deviations and transferring competencies to the level of robotic systems [51]. It is worth noting that the extreme conditions of the Arctic are an objective factor in accelerating the introduction of remote-control technologies and intelligent automation of production.

The use of digital technologies in the fuel and energy complex, which is the basis for the economic development of the Arctic region, provides intelligent automation of processes at facilities. Major oil and gas companies already use BigData (including BigGeoData), IoT, industrial Internet, blockchain, and artificial intelligence technologies [49,50] to solve applied problems and plan to expand this practice in the Arctic. Thus, 'Gazprom Neft' is ahead of 'Rosneft' in terms of innovation rates in its oil and gas programs, which indicates that 'Gazprom Neft' is more attentive to the digital transformation of implementing the large-scale RF governmental program "Digital economy of the Russian Federation": For example, the programs "Project managemen<sup>t</sup> center", "Cognitive geologist", "Digital drilling" [52].

The use of digital technologies in the fuel and energy complex, in particular, the development of "digital deposits", provides intelligent automation of processes at facilities. According to experts, "digitalization of wells", "digital drilling", and modeling of technological processes [53,54] can reduce the cost of field operation by approximately 15–20% [51,55]. In the context of lower energy prices for Arctic hydrocarbon deposits, this factor plays a special role.

It is worth noting that digital technologies in the energy sector are used not only within the upstream sector. Static and dynamic analysis of processes allows you to adjust and reorganize related business processes, and make managemen<sup>t</sup> decisions quickly.

These trends occur against the background of a perceived shortage of professional personnel, which causes the need to algorithmize the competencies of professional knowledge and skills and retrain specialists in new digital specialties [50]. In this regard, a special role in the future 5–10 years will be played by the skills and abilities to remotely control the technological processes, working with databases, and ensuring their security.

As you know, these technologies are end-to-end, which, on the one hand, opens up additional opportunities, and on the other, creates new risks and threats. In this regard, an important condition for e ffective training of a specialist is inevitably associated with obtaining a basic knowledge of Internet technologies and the complex nature of modern threats. All leading universities that train personnel for the Arctic have conducted training in the digital technologies, and often have separate divisions specializing in this area. For example, the aforementioned scientific-educational center "Gazpromneft-Polytech" (St.-Petersburg Polytechnic University), Teaching and research center of digital technologies (Saint-Petersburg Mining University), Department of integrated security TEK Russian State University of oil and gas (national research institute) named after I. M. Gubkin (which is the basis of the first in Russia laboratory study of detection of computer attacks with the example of virtual enterprises of oil and gas complex), and so on. [56,57].

The high knowledge intensity of Arctic projects underscores the need for in-depth monitoring of the technology market and the development of promising technical solutions and consideration when drawing up professional standards.

## *4.4. Internationalization of Arctic Education*

Although the observed increase in international competition in the development and implementation of technological innovations in the Arctic, international cooperation in the sphere of Arctic education continues to develop steadily.

International exchange of training experience, the convergence of standards, and formation of international educational standards allows us to bridge the gap between educational processes, innovative solutions, and know-how applied in di fferent parts of the Arctic.

A striking example of the internationalization of Arctic education is the international network project UArctic, created in 2001 on the initiative of the Arctic Council to create a unified scientific and educational network of organizations working in the spheres of higher education and research in the Arctic region (organizations located in the Arctic and implementing scientific and educational projects for the Arctic). If at the time of the project creation it included no more than 30 participants, then in 2020, it already had 153 participants from 11 countries. It is noteworthy that the majority of participants are from Russia, 27%—41 participants [58] (Figure 1). However, neither Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, nor Saint Petersburg Mining University, nor Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University are members of UArctic.

**Figure 1.** UArctic members distribution [58].

In turn, the analysis of the number of proposed scientific and educational programs showed that, despite their large number, Russian project participants are not inferior to their western counterparts in the number of implemented programs for training specialists.

Thus, within the framework of the project, out of 18 bachelor's degree programs (43 courses in total), only two programs and six courses are implemented by Russian organizations. While Norway, which has only 6% of the total number of participants in the UArctic Program, implements eleven undergraduate programs and six courses. Out of 81 master's degree programs, only eight are implemented by participants from Russia. PhD programs are not presented by participants Russian at all, but participants Russian offer seven PhD courses (Table 6) [58].


**Table 6.** The number of programs and courses implemented under the UArctic project 1.

1 Composed by the authors basing on the UArctic site data analyses [58].

Programs and courses are implemented in various forms—international summer and winter schools, training programs. In total, 24 different training programs presented by Russian universities are being implemented. Attention is drawn to the fact that the Summer school of the Saint Petersburg Mining University is marked among the programs, while the university is not an official member of UArctic (Table 7).


**Table 7.** Training programs implemented by Russian universities within the framework of UArctic 1.

> 1Composed by the authors basing on the UArctic site data analyses [58].

It is noteworthy that among all the training programs and courses offered by UArctic, the summer school of Saint Petersburg State University is the only program focused on developing the oil and gas complex in the Arctic: With a focus on technical and earth sciences. However, the project does not include Gubkin University Summer School "Development of offshore fields", which is important for training personnel for the Arctic. In turn, the vast majority of programs implemented by UArctic relate to the field of interdisciplinary research that combines social and earth sciences and covers such topics as land, environment, peoples, cultures, and politics in the Arctic and subarctic states—Circumpolar Studies, as well as economic problems of the region. (An exception is 'FEFU School of Engineering, 'Ice Mechanics' Annual International Winter courses, and the 'Geology' program implemented by Saint Petersburg University).

Thus, the analysis of UArctic training programs and courses showed that despite a significant number of participating Russian universities (including universities that train personnel for the oil and

gas industry), in the vast majority of cases, their role is limited to providing students with courses, rather than implementing their own training programs. This seems to indicate that Arctic education in Russia is catching up and that the education system is lagging behind the general trends in training Arctic personnel: Russian universities are learning, not teaching. There is an interdisciplinary approach to UArctic programs with an emphasis on earth and environmental sciences, socio-humanitarian and economic courses.

The obvious flagship of this educational movement is the Northern (Arctic) University named after M. V. Lomonosov, which implements the majority of the training program and is the base of the UArctic research o ffice in Russia.
