Academic Life

Since its founding as a the Program "Arts and Humanities" (Smolny College), the new educational program  has received recognition as a promising center of both fundamental and applied research in interdisciplinary fields such as educational policy, contemporary educational technology, research methodology, theory and methods of liberal education, and the humanities and social sciences.

The academic activity of the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences is designed to encourage interdisciplinary approaches that overcome the barriers between different academic fields; between the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences; and between academics, culture, and social life. The Department  supports the expansion of academic and creative collaboration between universities, academic and cultural institutions, professors, researchers, and the creative minds of St. Petersburg and Russia. Special attention is paid to  introducing the Russian academic community to global academic developments. To support fundamental and applied research and raise the level of academic excellence in the spheres of the humanities, arts, and social sciences, Smolny College founded Smolny Collegium.

Smolny Collegium was created in 2003, based on the model of  existing interdisciplinary research institutions (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Collegium Budapest, and Collegiums in France). In Russia, the collegium is a completely new form of academic institution.

The Collegium invites both young researchers and established scholars from Russia and abroad, providing them with favorable conditions for work on academic projects. Through the Collegium,  the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences aims to promote and improve mutual understanding between scholars form Russia, the former Soviet Union, the countries of Eastern and Western Europe, and the United States. Smolny Collegium has assigned itself the following goals and tasks:

• Ensuring the interaction of research and education at the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences;
• Introducing the newest developments in the fields of social sciences and the humanities to the Department’s curriculum;
• Integrating  students and professors in an international intellectual space;
• Encouraging creatively and methodologically oriented academic research projects that overcome both interdisciplinary barriers and the isolation of the research community from contemporary culture and public life
• Contributing to the reestablishment of research contacts with regional Russian universities
• Creating a genuinly international intellectual environment at the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences;
• Creating conditions for the development of research collaboration between Department professors and researchers from abroad.