Russia lagged behind Europe by more than six centuries in the opening of classical universities. The first in the world, Bologna, was founded in 1088. In Ancient Rus’, the centers of knowledge at that time were monastic schools. In engineering education, the picture is fundamentally different: Russia, together with the most advanced countries of Europe, stands at the origins of the creation of the first specialized technical higher schools.
The formalization of engineering education fell in the 18th century. The prerequisite, as is well known, was the “machine revolution.” The British adapted the steam boiler with piston and valves patented by the Frenchman Denis Papin for pumping water from mines. Ivan Polzunov created the world’s first universal steam engine at the Kolyvano-Voskresensk factories. Thereafter, the process of industrialization accelerated rapidly. Mechanization spread to the mining, metallurgical, cotton, and textile industries. Then machine tools appeared, and mechanical engineering began to develop.
The response to the need for engineering support of mass production was the opening in Paris of the National School of Bridges and Roads in 1747 and of the Freiberg Mining Academy in Germany in 1765. As early as 1773, Empress Catherine II approved the Senate’s report, “On the Establishment of the Mining School under the Berg-Collegium”.
Since then, the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University has continued to develop and multiply the traditions of the national engineering school. During the 1990s crisis and the unsuccessful entry into the Bologna Process, with its under-taught bachelors and unsystematically trained masters, the Mining University remained one of the few custodians of those traditions. Contrary to top-down directives, the University preserved the Specialist degree to the greatest extent possible, sought to maintain the link between training and practice, and the formative component of education. The result is plain to see—Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University is the only university in Russia that consistently remains in the top ten of the QS subject ranking.
1773: Empress Catherine II approved the Senate’s report on the establishment of a mining school in St. Petersburg.
1834: Nicholas I issued regulations that, for the first time in Russia, established the title of mining engineer. The best graduates were commissioned with the ranks of lieutenant and second lieutenant. The others were assigned the civil rank of Cabinet Registrar. Fundamental scientific schools in chemistry and metallurgy took shape at the university.
1896: By decree of Nicholas II, the university was granted the title of the Empress Catherine II Mining Institute.
1919: The Council of the Mining Institute resolved to add a mining-mechanical faculty to the existing ones—geological exploration, mining-plant, and mining.
1948: Additional faculties of mine construction and petroleum were opened.
1962: The institution began training economists for the mining industry and radio-electronics specialists.
2000: In a sign of continuity with tradition, the mandatory wearing of uniforms was reinstated at the university.
2023: The university, the first among the six universities participating in the presidential pilot project to improve higher education, fully carried out student admissions under the new model. In the same year, the university was again named after Empress Catherine II.
The idea of continuity, as a creative rethinking of the intellectual legacy of predecessors, underpins the new model of engineering education that the University is developing and implementing within the framework of the presidential pilot project. It is no coincidence that the first all-Russian academic session, “Heritage and Continuity in Engineering Education,” organized with the support of the International Centre of Competence in Mining Engineering under the auspices of UNESCO, was held here.
The combination of Russia's vast natural resources with science-intensive, innovative technologies; a critical attitude toward prosperity “recipes” imposed from outside; and the overcoming of individualism in science and industry are the key conditions under which, according to Rector of the Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko, today’s Russia can regain its position as a world leader—that is, once again join the ranks of the states that set the vectors of global development. And not only in specific areas—such as the peaceful atom, for example—but across all principal domains, to be at least in the world’s top ten.
First Deputy Director of the Center for Language Competencies of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, Mikhail Mikeshin, said in his report at the plenary session that the 2023 pilot project is already the second time that Russia’s oldest technical university has become a platform for a new educational model. The first instance was the innovations of the early 19th century, initiated by the transformation of the school into the Mining Cadet Corps in 1804: issues were addressed concerning the University’s interaction with the mining industry, the continuous education of mining engineers, the ensuring of unity between theory and practice in education, and the role of mining engineers was conceptualized as highly educated, cultured people “on the ground”.
A symbol of the national engineering school was the construction of the University’s main building—a masterpiece by architect Andrey Voronikhin, the creator of St. Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral. In 1996, the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute was included in the register of particularly valuable objects of the cultural heritage of the peoples of Russia, which in turn symbolized the preservation of traditions and a course toward development despite the overall educational and economic crisis of the 1990s.
A clear testament to the Mining University’s continuity with its own history can be provided by comparing the theses from the reports of the University’s representatives at the current session with excerpts from the 1848 “Instructions for the Corps of Mining Engineers”.
Vice-Rector for the implementation of the pilot project, Dmitry Tananykhin, revealing the details of the new model of engineering education, dwelt in detail on the concept of mentoring as a key instrument of formative education. For junior students, mentors become assistants in adaptation and guides into the academic community. Then the baton is taken up by pedagogical mentors. Their role is important in shaping the student’s individual educational trajectory and coordinating their scientific research work. Interns at enterprises are accompanied by industrial mentors. Mentoring also plays a great role among the faculty.
What was the 1848 perspective on moral education:
«Learning must serve not only for the acquisition of knowledge and the sharpening of the mind, but also for influencing moral character, for it forms the thoughts from which all actions arise. This must be kept constantly in mind by both mentors and teachers. <…>
Instill in them [the students] a desire for study, for the acquisition of useful knowledge, and, in general, for self-improvement. Impress upon them that, valuing time—which cannot by any means be brought back—they should never be idle and never do anything useless.
The means to achieve the goal of moral education are: the stirring of conscience, example, competition, ambition, learning, reading, conversations, rewards, and punishments».
One of the pillars of Russian shipbuilding, Alexey Krylov, said: “Sooner or later every correct mathematical idea finds application in one or another field.” So it is with engineering. In both the imperial and the Soviet periods, the Mining Institute educated a whole pleiad of outstanding generalists who proved themselves at once in several areas of activity. Humanistic psychology calls such people self-actualized. An example is Ivan Antonovich Efremov, a scholar who created taphonomy, an interdisciplinary scientific field studying the regularities of the preservation of fossilized organism remains in sedimentary rocks, and simultaneously the author of landmark works of Russian science fiction—the novels “The Andromeda Nebula” and “The Bull's Hour”.
Director of the Mining Museum Mikhail Shabalov outlined in his report the most important lessons that the alma mater of outstanding Russian engineers has drawn from its more than 250-year history and incorporated into the new educational model. In particular, these include the ability for rapid retraining and mastery of related fields as a critically important quality for an engineer.
Let us look at the methods by which a culture of thinking was developed among students of the Mining University in the 19th century, through a quotation from the Instructions:
«Always beginning with the simplest, proceed to the more complex, observing the possible gradualness and continuity, so that the preceding always serves as preparation for what follows.
In all mathematical and natural sciences, one should not be content with teaching theoretical rules alone, but should always explain their application».
Vice-Rector Sergey Novikov is responsible at the Mining University for organizing interaction with academic partners. This represents a new, closer format of cooperation between the university and employers. Representatives of partner companies, together with the university, assess the level of practical skills acquired by students, participate in the work of the qualification commission determining residual knowledge, and are present at the defense of diploma projects.
In his report, he identified the factors involved in training engineer-leaders. Within the “enterprise–university” framework, it is necessary to establish technological platforms, design bureaus, and laboratories tailored to specific scientific, educational, and industrial objectives. Education must be practice-oriented, and in the process of training specialists, particular attention should be paid to fostering a culture of engineering creativity. No less important is the mechanism of intergenerational transmission of experience, as well as the formation of motivation and an awareness of the value of labor.
This is how the connection between theory and practice is described in the Instructions:
«Physics is taught in its entirety, and theory must be supported by experiments. Students of the upper class, at their discretion and in their free time outside of classes, engage in conducting magnetic and meteorological observations, as several such observatories have been established in various locations across Siberia and are under the supervision of the mining authorities.
Chemistry, as the foundation for the in-depth study of mineralogy, metallurgy, and even geognosy, is taught as extensively and completely as possible, both theoretically and practically.The pupils who are graduating must possess skills in performing decompositions, preferably of inorganic bodies, and must be able to use the blowpipe. <…>
During the summer holidays, the pupils of the three highest classes engage in various practical exercises adapted to mining service. Each student is obliged to keep a journal of his activities, and no later than three months after returning to the institute, such journals, together with plans, maps, and drawings produced by the students and certified by the signatures of the persons supervising the practical exercises, must be submitted».
The first graduation of engineers who will complete the full cycle of training within the framework of the presidential pilot project will graduate only in three years. However, already today, educational innovations grounded in the legacy of the past have significantly increased the already traditionally high demand for young specialists holding diplomas from Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University. Accordingly, the quality of applicants is also rising.
During the 2025 admissions campaign, 36,673 applications were submitted for 2,293 available places. The average Unified State Exam (USE) score was 322.3. The average secondary school certificate grade (within the pilot project, the Mining University was the first to take this parameter into account in admissions) was 93.72. A high level of knowledge at entry into higher education is a guarantee of successful study. Future engineers will be worthy of their predecessors of the 19th century, the best of whom, in addition to the high title of Russian mining engineer, were awarded a silver sword knot for their saber as a sign of belonging to the country's elite.
