2023 New Year Address by the Rector at St Petersburg University
Dear friends,
As the 2022 year winds down, I would like to thank all the staff, students and graduates of St Petersburg University, who had contributed significantly to the development of our alma mater. Each and every one of you is the reason why SPbU has been a leading educational and scientific hub in Russia and abroad for almost 300 years.
Throughout 2022, the University has provided and will continue to provide all possible support and assistance to the citizens of Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. SPbU set up a special fund to provide financial assistance to the students from these regions. St Petersburg University members also took active part in collecting humanitarian aid: many students and employees responded to the call to support those who in need. I believe that today ability to help others and to overcome any challenges together is the most important thing for all citizens of the Russian Federation.
Traditionally, the departing year was filled with remarkable achievements. The University continued to actively develop partnership relations. A grand opening of a new representative office of St Petersburg University took place in the Navoi Free Economic Zone (the Republic of Uzbekistan). Moreover, it is planned to establish a SPbU branch in Cairo (the Arab Republic of Egypt), where medical workers will be trained. This year the joint campus of St Petersburg University and Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin (the PRC) accepted its first 147 students. St Petersburg University today is also at the forefront in terms of demand among international applicants. For the fifth year in a row, St Petersburg University became the most popular university in Russia among international applicants.
Among the most important outcomes of this year is the winning of SPbU students in the individual competition of the most prestigious International Mathematics Competition for University Students IMC-2022. Beyond that, the St Petersburg University team was ranked ahead of programmers from the University of Oxford, Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge, and won bronze medals of the 45th Annual International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). Furthermore, St Petersburg University once again entered the top three Russian universities according to the Vladimir Potanin Foundation rankings.
St Petersburg University research staff successfully achieved new results. During one of the recent competitions of the Russian Science Foundation, University staff and students have been awarded with 112 grants making SPbU a leader among all Russian institutions in terms of number of grants received.
The discoveries and developments of St Petersburg University are among the most memorable scientific events of the outgoing year, according to a number of reliable sources. Research on activity of cationic organic catalysts conducted by SPbU chemists was included in the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti list. National analogue of the SWIFT international system of interbank financial messages developed by the SPbU Distributed Ledger Technologies Centre was cited as one of the major accomplishments of the first year of the Decade of Science and Technology in Russia.
It is important to mention that the University makes sure that the latest developments in science and education are open and available to as many people as possible. Therefore, in 2022, St Petersburg University became the first Russian university, educational materials of which were included into the Sapsan high-speed trains’ multimedia system.
The outgoing year was marked by a number of major cultural events. SPbU joined to the International Council of Museums, the Botanical Garden of St Petersburg University has won the XIII National Award in landscape architecture. For the first time in the SPbU history, we officially opened the first summer season in the Botanical Garden. We also presented a joint project with the State Hermitage Museum, the illustrated The Hermitage Garden Book, and held many events to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great.
Dear University staff members, students, and graduates! I believe that the coming year will bring us new academic, scientific, and creative successes and discoveries. May the coming year be filled with bright and positive events, become a time of prospects and new opportunities, bring a good luck, and expand our achievements.
I am sure Russia will withstand all difficulties with honor, defeat the enemy and will manage with threats to international security.
Happy New Year of 2023!
Rector of St Petersburg University,
Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Nikolay Kropachev