INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SCHOOL
Concept and History
Useful information
International Research School (IRS) is a project initiated by the All-Russian Movement of Creative Teachers "Researcher" for high school students who are interested in science and technology. The IRS was founded by the chairman of the movement - Alexander Leontovich, who was also with Ksenia Salnikova and Alexey Obukhov one of the authors of its idea and program.
The main goal of the IRS is to create an exciting and stimulating multicultural environment that motivates youth for research and scientific creativity. The team had the idea of creating the International Research School after participating in several international exhibitions of youth's scientific and technical creativity - MILSET Expo-Sciences. The main feature of MILSET exhibitions is that, as distinct from many other international events for youth, they are not competitive but rather based on the principles of cooperation and mutual interest. The atmosphere at the Expo-Sciences exhibitions attracted us so much that we wanted to transfer it to Russia by creating our own international educational event for children.
The main goal of the IRS is to create an exciting and stimulating multicultural environment that motivates youth for research and scientific creativity. The team had the idea of creating the International Research School after participating in several international exhibitions of youth's scientific and technical creativity - MILSET Expo-Sciences. The main feature of MILSET exhibitions is that, as distinct from many other international events for youth, they are not competitive but rather based on the principles of cooperation and mutual interest. The atmosphere at the Expo-Sciences exhibitions attracted us so much that we wanted to transfer it to Russia by creating our own international educational event for children.
When we were developing the IRS concept, it was important for us not only to create an environment that would motivate schoolchildren for cooperation and mutual interest, but also to involve them in real joint research activity.
This determined the main form of work - a group research project: while working on it, the participants get to know each other, learn to understand each other and work together. In addition, we developed the IRS program in such a way that it took up the entire active time of the participants throughout the 10 days of the project and provided the maximum number of intersections and mutual contacts between the participants working on different projects. Time at the IRS is not divided into "work" and "rest": scientific research, educational and leisure activities constitute a single meaningful complex, all parts of which carry their own meaning and are closely related to each other.
This determined the main form of work - a group research project: while working on it, the participants get to know each other, learn to understand each other and work together. In addition, we developed the IRS program in such a way that it took up the entire active time of the participants throughout the 10 days of the project and provided the maximum number of intersections and mutual contacts between the participants working on different projects. Time at the IRS is not divided into "work" and "rest": scientific research, educational and leisure activities constitute a single meaningful complex, all parts of which carry their own meaning and are closely related to each other.
The present-day IRS program was not formed immediately, though. We analyzed and summarized the experience of each IRS, starting from the first one, which passed successfully in 2008. Totally, 15 International Research Schools have been held so far - eight in the Moscow Region (2008-2014, 2016), one in the Kaliningrad Region (2015), three in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) (2017, 2018, 2022) and one in Kaluga region (2019), Online (2021). The 15th IRS was held in Kyrgyz Republic.
