St Petersburg University students to be taught strategic planning of territories
Regional development is one of the key tasks of government, business and civil society. Strategic planning allows to focus on the competitive advantages of territories, identify growth points, and attract investment resources in priority areas of development. Strengthening the competitive position of the region leads to an improvement in its socio-economic situation.
The master's programme in Economic Geography and Digital Spatial Analytics is designed to prepare professionals who can work as expert analysts, consultants in the strategies for the development of cities, regions and large corporations, as well as urban planners. Future masters are introduced to the principles of developing strategies for the development of urban agglomerations and rural areas, as well as conducting geomarketing research. The academic programme combines in-depth training in the field of socio-economic geography with the use of geoinformation technologies, as well as modern digital tools for spatial analytics.
The role of spatial analytics has increased in connection with the Strategy for Spatial Development of Russia until 2025, adopted at the beginning of 2019. This document determined that it is necessary to manage the development of the country's territory taking into account regional and local specifics. This involves specialists in the field of strategic planning and digital processing of spatial data.
Kira Morachevskaya, head of the programme, Associate Professor at St Petersburg University
Information on admissions tests and admissions quotas for the 2019 programme can be found here.
The courses of the programme are taught in Russian and English. In the third term, there is an opportunity to undertake an inclusive education at the University of Eastern Finland, the partner of the programme. It employs strong specialists in the field of digital data processing. Students will learn how to use the R programming language to work with spatial statistics, create special geographical information systems that are in demand in strategic and territorial planning. In addition, education in a cross-cultural environment will increase the competitiveness of graduates in the international labour market.
Masters are trained for various types of activities: from research to management. The governments of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Leontief Centre, Gazprom Neft, Rosatom, and Institute for Territorial Planning ‘Urbanica’– these are some of organisations in which the programme alumni work. They are in demand in design institutions, state and municipal authorities, and corporate centres for geomarketing research.