Poisk: We have the right and the obligation. The mission of St Petersburg University through the eyes of the Rector who is a lawyer

We have a recorded history of St Petersburg University from the stroke of the pen of Peter the Great. What do you think has been the best time for the University during these three centuries? 

For me personally, a good time is a challenging, testing time. Over the past years, we have been overcoming plenty of difficulties. Having overcome them, we have gained a success. I think the University is successful as it never fails to meet the needs of the state. If the University ever forgot about this task, it did not fulfil the purpose why it had been created by Peter the Great. 

It is essential for us to support Russia, to solve the most pressing real-life problems of the state. This is the main goal of St Petersburg University. 

What is the criterion as to how to measure success of the University here and now in your opinion? 

The University is successful as what we do is in demand for the state and society. Today, the University cooperates with more than 30 regions of Russia. In some regions, we help develop medicine, while in other regions, we develop transport logistics or tourism. 

Over the past five years, our young scientists have received awards from the President of the Russian Federation three times. They cover different areas of study. This year, Associate Professor Olga Iakubovich has received an award for her innovative method for detecting precious metal ores: gold and platinum. Just imagine how important this is for our country! 

Last year, the University, represented by its academic staff, won more than 5% of all grants from the Russian Science Foundation. It is the best indicator among Russian universities and scientific organisations. 

We are promoting Russian education and science not only in Russia, but also abroad. This is, of course, a state task. Despite the problems of the present time, interest in St Petersburg University is far from decreasing. Quite the contrary, it grows. In 2023, compared to 2022, the number of foreign lecturers increased by 30%. These are the people who want to work at St Petersburg University, teach our students and conduct their research, because the University gives them great opportunities. 

There is another indicator. For six years in a row, St Petersburg University has been the most popular university in Russia among foreign citizens. 

There are 21,000 students applying for 1,000 places on the government-funded places at the University. In other words, we have a competition of 21 applications per place. These are young people from 120 countries. This year, we have received documents from applicants from 140 countries. There is even a competition on a fee-paying basis. It is three applications per place. 

This year, the acceptance of documents has not yet ended, and those wishing to enrol on a fee-paying basis are students from 95 countries. In my opinion, it is a Russia’s record! 

Our University has always shaped the scientific, educational and cultural agenda of the country. The University students include Mikhail Lomonosov, Dmitri Mendeleev, Alexander Popov, nine Nobel laureates, and two Fields Medal winners. We have famous cultural figures: Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Blok, Sergei Diaghilev, Nicholas Roerich, Mikhail Vrubel. Nikolai Gogol taught here, although not for a very long period of time. You can’t count them all! 

It is not only about science and research. In Leningrad, on the site of the lobby of the metro station "Ploshchad Vosstaniya", there was the Znamenskaya Church, which the Soviet authorities tried to demolish, but its patron and, as historians say, honorary headman was Academician Ivan Pavlov, our graduate, a famous physiologist, the first Nobel laureate from Russia. After his death, the temple was destroyed. What I mean is that the influence of the University professors and graduates on the world around them has varied and has been multidirectional, both direct and indirect. 

Was it and still is? 

I know that our graduates living in different parts of the country convince their children and grandchildren to study only at alma mater. What is more is that our younger generation is listening to them! When it comes to the residents of the city on the Neva River, according to some surveys, every fifth of them, to a certain extent, associate themselves with St Petersburg University. 

You have quite a lot of competitors. How to maintain leadership influence on the university environment and, more broadly, on life? 

You should work proactively and at the highest level. There is no other recipe. We have always suggested initiatives that subsequently found support at the state level, and consequently these initiates were first tested at St Petersburg University. 

Now, on our initiative, the status of university museums is being discussed at the level of two relevant ministries. St Petersburg University is not only an educational institution. 

Today, it includes nine museums, the Botanical Garden, and the Herbarium. They are open not only to the University staff and students. Anyone can have a tour there, by ticket or by appointment. Some of the Hermitage exhibits are from the University, transferred to the Hermitage for temporary storage. Importantly, it is legally correct as we initiated a proposal to include museum activities in the University Charter, which makes it possible to achieve the allocation of budget funds for its financing. 

Since 2021, the University is a member of the Union of Museums of Russia, whose President is Academician Mikhail Piotrovsky, who is our graduate, Dean of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies at St Petersburg University. 

In recent years, how the University has been influencing medical science and practice has been on the rise. The Institute of Translational Biomedicine at St Petersburg University, which is headed by Raul Gainetdinov, who is one of the highly cited researchers in the world, is testing the latest advances in genetics and molecular biology for the treatment of brain diseases. 

In our Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies, that has the most up-to-date equipment and infrastructure, there are 340 beds, yet it performs more operations than any other federal medical centre, which has more than 1,000 beds. The geography of patients covers our entire country. By offering high salaries to our employees, we can invite the best specialists from all over Russia to work with us. 

As you can see, people turn to us for help, they want to study with us, conduct research, employers and leading Russian companies cooperate with us, which means we are in high demand! 

Your another clinic, the Legal Clinic, is also in demand. Yet why a clinic and not a consultation? 

This term comes from medicine. Without having to go through clinical residency, a physician will not gain adequate practical experience. Future lawyers, psychologists, and sociologists are no exception. What is more is that the University clinics provide citizens with the opportunity to receive not just advice, but real help. Yes, it is students who provide assistance, but under the guidance of experienced lecturers. Once one of our senior comrades in the Rector’s office told me, who was then Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law: "Do you want students to consult citizens for free? Who is to bear a responsibility for providing incorrect consultation?" 

I achieved what I had been striving for only after the Faculty of Law received the powers of a legal entity, including the right to independently formulate a curriculum. We introduced it first as an option to choose by students, and then as an imperative to undergo clinical practice. 

The Academic Council of the Faculty of Law, which consisted mainly of my lecturers, lawyers of the old school, initially objected. They said it would distract from teaching. Students constantly need new knowledge that meets constant changes in legislation. Lecturers must also know these changes. 

How does the Legal Clinic work in the teaching and learning process? 

Students accept requests by phone, discuss answers with lecturers. This is part of the paid workload of the academic staff. Then, students receive an assessment and recommendations. Next, clients are invited to the building where the clinic is located, just opposite the Faculty of Law. There are rooms for consultation participants with video communication so that the lecturer can intervene if required. In future, these videos may be discussed during lessons. 

When I was a student and a lecturer, practice was preceded by solving "paper" problems from textbooks. For practice, we were often sent to the court or the prosecutor’s office and tasked with delivering subpoenas and stitching up cases. The expression "the cases are stitched" came from this practice. Or you had to nod. You should sit next to the judge, pretending to be a people’s assessor. 

Serving as Dean of the Faculty of Law, I suggested introducing business games instead of taking tasks in special courses on criminal law, labour law, and civil law. Thus, we turn the audience into a courtroom. 

The one they show on TV? A judge with the gavel. 

The main thing is not in the picture, but in the methodology. Students in the group change places, each one tries on the role of a judge, a prosecutor, a lawyer, a people’s assessor. At the same time, a lecturer is assisted by an active lawyer, an active prosecutor, an active judge. We find opportunities to involve them. 

Having gained such experience, you are more confident to work in the clinic. Every year, our students provide real assistance to thousands of citizens. The consultation materials are published on the University website. People from all over the country come to us to learn about the experience of organising clinical education. 

Future specialists in the field of archival science, advertising, economics, psychology, and sociology should also immerse in practice, shouldn’t they? 

Now, the University has more than 20 clinics that provide free assistance to people. This is the most important social mission of the University. 

You have taken on the functions of monitoring law enforcement. Yet various departments provide information to the Ministry of Justice on how the regulations they have adopted work. 

Monitoring, in my opinion, should be independent. What is more is that it should be multifaceted. It is supervision over compliance with legal norms in various fields of our life. The University, having such a rich expert community and experience, can meet these parameters! 

The Ministry of Justice confirms that more than half of the total monitoring information submitted to the Ministry comes from us. 

We analyse these materials, publish them on the University website, use them in the teaching and learning process and scientific activities, and publish them as collections of materials. If you look through them, you can see the areas and topics of our projects. 

For example, in the field of labour law: refusal to issue a patent and revocation of a work patent for foreign citizens; labour regulation for remote workers; application of international labour law in judicial practice; Covid payments to medical workers. What we do is relevant and up-to-date! 

Today, the main achievement of the University is that it has united. Monitoring law enforcement also helped us with this. For example, if lawyers monitor compliance with health legislation, they should involve doctors in this work. 

When it comes to discussing the impact on the environment, we need ecologists, economists, biologists, and doctors to name just a few. 

We are now preparing for monitoring in the following way. At the Rector’s meeting, the Dean of the Faculty of Law informs other deans about the topics of the upcoming work. They, in their turn, attract colleagues from their departments. Can any ministry do it in the way we can do it? No, due to the lack of necessary specialists. We can as we are the oldest classical university in Russia and have such great expert potential! That’s why we take on increased responsibilities. 

On our initiative, the University Charter states that we have the right to engage in expert activities. This was our free will. No one forced us to do this. Moreover, we ask to increase the expert load at St Petersburg University, because by doing so we can benefit the society. 

Recently, we have discussed an issue relating to how to protect Lake Baikal. We approached this issue not only from the ecological point of view. Any actions in solving this issue should be calculated from the point of view of economics, law and psychology of the people whose interests they affect. We should also foresee political consequences. 

Globally, water management poses challenges in international cooperation. In this regard, we also prepare international specialists. No matter what field you take: engineering, space exploration, or genetics. If you are trying to solve any issue without taking an interdisciplinary approach, that is typical to the University, it will do no good. 

You take on a lot, but a lot is given to you. It is believed that supporting university science is our priority. Lomonosov Moscow State University and St Petersburg University have a special status. Do you agree? 

Only partly. The state actively supports university science, but it is just one of the priorities. I do not agree with the prevailing opinion that the quality of university science is higher than academic science. 

I have a firsthand experience. We work closely and fruitfully with colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences. More than a quarter of the publications of the University researchers were prepared jointly with the Russian Academy of Sciences. Every year, the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences carry out an examination of all scientific topics and reports of St Petersburg University. For many years, we have been doing this work on our own initiative. 

Priority goes to those who do their job effectively. Scientific foundations do not award grants based on what is written on the institution’s sign, but on a competitive basis. The regions enter into agreements with us not because the University is 300 years old and our name sounds proud. We can simply do what not everyone can do, realising our scientific and educational potential, and even in a non-standard format. 

Together with the Alexandrinsky Theatre, we offer a unique programme to prepare theatre managers. For this purpose, we use the opportunities of the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University. We will similarly prepare leaders of libraries and museums. All of these are the state tasks. It is important for the state that the University solve these tasks at the highest level. 

You have a powerful Research Park, consisting of 26 divisions, i.e. educational and scientific laboratories, resource centres. Academic institutes have never even dreamed of research parks. This is an essential platform for breakthrough research that few others have. 

Indeed, in 2010 the state allocated money for the development of Lomonosov Moscow State University and St Petersburg University. These were the first programmes for the development of universities in the country. We, as pioneers, had to rethink and rearrange a lot in what we had been doing. 

At that time, the University Charter stated that the areas of scientific research were determined by the Academic Council as the highest collegial authority of St Petersburg University, which could take any issue into consideration. 

From 1991 to 2008, our Academic Council made 95 decisions on non-compliance with the federal legislation. For example, the law on higher education, the Budget Code of the Russian Federation, and resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation to name just a few. The logic was simple: "We are the oldest and the leading university in Russia, so we are not going to obey anyone". 

Once we took a decision that the orders of the Minister of Science and Higher Education were not valid for St Petersburg University. I remember those times well. I became a member of the Academic Council when I was 32, just in 1991. My vote against such decisions, like the votes of several other colleagues, did not affect the overall situation. 

Only in 2010, St Petersburg University clearly and unambiguously decided on the above-mentioned issues. We are a state university and we are implementing the University Strategic Plan that is approved by the state. They give us funding, set criteria for completing the task, and we will meet them. For this purpose, we ask that appropriate amendments be made to our Charter. 

Now, annual defences of strategic plans of leading universities is the norm. Again, we were the first. Since 2010, our work has also been checked by the Accounts Chamber and every year it studies how we spend funds under a microscope, as they say. The efficiency of using budget funds is our priority.