PolitPRpro cops prize in PROBA Awards 2019

The PolitPRpro competition has been conducted at St Petersburg University since 2010 and is the first and still the only competition for students in the field of political communications in Russia.  Every year, it serves as a gathering point where future professionals can receive practical training in PR, and it allows representatives of professional associations to share their expertise with students.  The first PR company in Russia, the Niccolo M Strategic Communications Agency, is a partner in this project.

‘The gratitude and the smiles on the faces of the participants in the competition, the avid interest of the judges, the active support of the University and teachers there, and now this victory in PROBA Awards 2019 – all of this leaves no doubt that, for those who are just beginning their careers in this field and for established political strategists, this competition is necessary and important,’ Iuliia Kazachenko, the director of the competition and a student in the Advertising and Public Relations programme at St Petersburg University, commented on the event.

For PolitPRpro, this award is not only recognition by the professional community but also a heavy responsibility.  With the winning of an international PR competition, the bar has been set at a high level, and the mission of the organising committee is to keep it there and to raise it even higher.

Iuliia Kazachenko, Director of the competition and a student in the Advertising and Public Relations programme at St Petersburg University

The PROBA Awards are an international competition in the field of communications that was first held in 2000.  It is designed to develop professional communications, to find the best talent in the business and to present outstanding communications projects that are on an international level.

Nina Zhuravleva, the academic supervisor of the project and an associate professor at St Petersburg University in the Department of Public Relations in Politics and Government Relations, noted that in this anniversary year the organising committee was able to raise the competition to a new level and gain the support of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.  Participants from Turkey, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Belarus also joined in.  ‘Among the judges and the experts who hold master classes for the participants, there are leaders in the communications branch of the political sphere and government officials.  For a long time, Igor Mintusov, the guru of Russian political consulting and the president of the European Association of Political Consultants, has been the chairman of the judges for PolitPRpro,’ Ms Zhuravleva added.  ‘This competition is well-known and much loved, and much of the credit for this goes to St Petersburg University professor Andrei Dorskii, who was in charge of the competition up through 2017.’

On this year’s short list, of the seven nominees for the best student PR project, four of them represented St Petersburg University.  They included proposed theoretical projects dedicated to current technologies used for advancements in biomedicine and for the development of PR support for Home Towns, Gazprom Neft’s social investment programme, and one project that has already been carried out at St Petersburg University, as part of the international GlobCom project.