Recently, the Chinese government “Friendship Award” has been presented in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Premier WEN Jiabao cordially met with the award-winning foreign experts and some of their families. Professor Batugina Ida who has been employed in CUMT-Beijing from the Moscow University of Mining and Technology was honored for her outstanding achievements and dedication made in the University’s Characteristic Research Project. The Chinese government “Friendship Award” is granted to foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the reform, opening up and modernization of the country. It is the highest honor granted to foreign experts by the Chinese government.

Professor Batugina Ida, who is the chief scientist of Dynamics Research Center for subsurface geology at Moscow University of Mining and Technology, an academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, as well as an academician of the International Scientific Academy of Human and Natural Ecological Security, was invited by President QIAO to work at CUMT-Beijing in 2010. In view of the outstanding achievements in collaborative research and the excellent academic morality and dedication of Professor Batugina, Beijing Municipal Government awarded her the “Great Wall Friendship Award” in 2011, which was the first time that the university won this award. Beijing “Great Wall Friendship Award” is known for its strictness. In such a city with a huge number of foreign experts as Beijing, Professor Batugina is only the 166th foreign expert who had been awarded this honor since its establishment in 1996.