Pr. Boris Berkovski
Pr. Boris Berkovski is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Foundation for a World in Transition.
Professor Boris M. Berkovski is known as a distinguished scientist and educator; he is particularly recognized as an international science and education administrator, demonstrating outstanding diplomatic skills.
Professor Berkovski initiated a major international program known as the World Solar Program (WSP), aiming at mobilizing governments, intergovernmental and non- governmental organizations, financial institutions, the academic world, and the private sector in support of large scale utilization of clean and renewable energy sources for the world's sustainable development from 1996 to 2005. Together with Federico Mayor, former Director General of UNESCO, he organized a prestigious Governing body of the WSP, the World Solar Commission (WSC), composed of 18 Heads of State and Government. These high-level personalities, serving in their personal capacity, have pledged their support for a renewed impetus to the development and utilization of energy sources and technologies better adopted for economic and social development whilst not compromising environmental protection. This political will at the highest level has been reflected in the 1996 Harare Declaration on Solar Energy and Sustainable Development.
Professor Berkovski has been intrusted by the World Solar Commission to serve as its Secretary General, to organize the World Solar Summit held in 1996, to create the World Solar Foundation and to be its President, and to serve as the founding President of the World Solar Academy.
Together with his eminent colleagues, members of USSR Academy of Sciences, E .P. Velikhov, A. E. Sheindlin and M. A. Styrikovich, Professor Berkovski has initiated and organized the Moscow International Energy Club in 1984; actively promoted activities of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer together with Pr. A. V. Luikov, Director of the Heat and Mass Transfer Institute of the BSSR Academy of Sciences, Pr. Brian Spalding, a founding father of computational fluid dynamics, and Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Hewitt, recognized leader of multiphase flow and heat transfer, both world eminent researchers from Imperial College, London, and Pr. George Keith Batchelor, a world-class excellence in a broad range of subjects across applied mathematics and theoretical physics, from Trinity College, Cambridge.
A Principal Director in the United Nations' system, Professor Boris Berkovski has served as Director of Engineering, Sciences and Technology, based at UNESCO, initiated the creation of Académie Francophone d'Ingénieurs and the World Solar Academy and several UNESCO chairs in the fields of engineering and technology.
Throughout his years of active scientific work and science administration, Boris Berkovski served as Department Director of the Moscow-based Institute of Higher Temperatures of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1980 to 1986, as Professor at the Fine Chemical Technology Institute in Moscow from 1983 to 1986, as Professor at the Byelorussian State University from 1965 to 1969, and as the Head of Laboratory at the Heat and Mass Transfer Institute of the BSSR Academy of Science from 1966 to 1973. His research interest was mainly concentrated on the non-Newtonian behavior of the matter. One of his preferred research directions was thermo-physics of non-Newtonian fluids. Another research direction from 1970 to 1996 was the Non-Newtonian behavior of matter in quasi-liquid states, featuring strong magnetic properties and more specifically the so-called magnetic fluids or ferro-fluids. Many interesting results were obtained both theoretically and experimentally.
Professor Boris Berkovski was Visiting Professor at the Universities of Eindhoven, London, Madras, Minnesota, Novosibirsk, Paris, Perm, Stony Brooks and Sverdlovsk and at Imperial College, London from 1965 to 1992.
Professor Berkovski has actively promoted the transfer of scientific knowledge for the development of industrial applications and particularly the development of new energy technologies.
He has been Editorial Board member of several periodical publications, such as Heat Transfer and Thermo Technologies since 1992, Numerical Heat Transfer since 1981, Journal of Energy and Heat and Mass Transfer since 1988, International Journal of Global Energy Issues since 1989, New and Renewable Energy Yearbook since 1992, International Journal of Solar Energy since 1990, Perspectives in Energy since 1991, Progress in Photovoltaic: Research and Applications since 1992.
Professor Berkovski published 7 monographs and more than 250 research papers in Russian, English and French, among them “Magnetic Fluids, Engineering Applications” (Oxford University Press, 1993), “Renewable Energy in the Service of Humanity” (Nauka Press, Moscow, 1987) and “The Solar Highway for Sustainable Development” (UNESCO Press, 1999). He holds 12 patents. A major world Energy Engineering Learning Package has been designed and created under the authority of Professor Boris Berkovski as Editor and published by Wiley & Sons Publishing House. This distance learning package has been established to train engineers to meet the challenges of tomorrow; it has been developed by an international team of distinguished academics.
Professor Berkovski is a member of numerous national and international professional societies, amongst which the International Centre for Mechanical Sciences, the Association des ingénieurs et techniciens utilisant la langue française, and the European Solar Council. He was a member of the USSR All Union Society Knowledge, USSR All Union Society Science and Technology, and the Russian Pedagogical Society.
Professor Berkovski holds a PhD. and a Doctor of Science in Physics. He speaks Russian, Byelorussian, English and French.
