The Russian Federation Minister for Education and Science Andrei Fursenko announced the results of the innovation development programs contest held among Russian colleges within the framework of the National Education Project. 40 colleges received between 200 million and 930 million RUR worth of grants, with the total investments exceeding 20 billion RUR. Each college is to get money for a particular purpose, and each of them must raise at least 20% of the budget needed independently.

There were four Ural colleges among the winners, namely, Ural State University, Ural State Technical University, South Ural State Technical University, and Tyumen State University. Ural State University is known to have been given over 500 million RUR.