St Petersburg University develops cooperation with Anhui Province
A delegation from Anhui Province headed by Jun Liu, Deputy Secretary of the City Committee of the Communist Party of China of Hefei, has visited St Petersburg University. The purpose of the visit was to discuss issues relating to developing mutually beneficial cooperation in education and research.
Valeriia Malomuzh, Deputy Vice-Rector for International Affairs at St Petersburg University, welcomed the guests and said that St Petersburg University is included in international rankings of leading universities. The University has more than 5,000 international students, with more than 2,000 of them being from the People’s Republic of China, she added.
St Petersburg University has more than 80 partners from China in the field of education and science. Among them are Tsinghua University, Peking University, Qingdao University, Jilin University, and Liaoning University to name just a few.
During the visit, it was proposed to sign a direct agreement between St Petersburg University and Anhui Province. St Petersburg University has already signed agreements with the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Heilongjiang Province, Shandong Province and Sichuan Province to organise internships for both lecturers and researchers, said Valeriia Malomuzh. Colleagues from China, in turn, expressed hope that students would be able to study at universities in Hefei.
The Deputy Vice-Rector for International Affairs at St Petersburg University also shared her experience of interaction with Harbin Institute of Technology. "The agreement on developing a joint campus of St Petersburg University and Harbin Institute of Technology was signed in 2019. In the autumn of 2022, the joint campus accepted the first students on double-degree programmes in the fields of chemistry, physics and mathematics," added Valeriia Malomuzh.
The joint campus of the two universities is located in the restored historical buildings of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the Consulate General of the Russian Empire in the historical and cultural centre of Harbin and covers an area of about 60,000 square meters.
Colleagues from China, in turn, showed interest in the experience of developing the campus of St Petersburg and Harbin Institute of Technology and expressed a hope to implement a similar project.
The parties discussed some issues relating to joint scientific work. "The cooperation agreement implies free use of the resources at the St Petersburg University Research Park. Joint research publications in journals indexed in the WoS and Scopus are a mandatory condition", said Tatiana Ryazantseva, Acting Head of the International Research Support Department at St Petersburg University.
Today, the University offers about 90 academic programmes with a Chinese component, said Valeriia Malomuzh. Among them are the following: "Law (with Advanced Study of the Chinese Language and the Law of the PRC)", "Contemporary China: Economics, Politics, Society", and "Economics (with Advanced Study of the Economy of China and the Chinese Language)". As a result of the meeting, it was decided to organise a visit of the Governor of Anhui Province to St Petersburg University to discuss further prospects for cooperation and sign a corresponding agreement.