Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities Established at UTMN

The UTMN Academic Council has approved the decision to establish an Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The new institute, established through merging the UTMN Institute of Philology and Journalism with the Institute of History and Political Sciences, opened its doors on 1 October 2017. The Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities is the now UTMN’s third largest institute according to its total number of students and teaching staff, behind the Institute of State and Law and the Institute of Finance and Economics. 

“When thinking about the results achieved in previous years, you also consider prospects for the future. In this respect, all the work we have done towards establishing the new UTMN institute has been extremely important,” said Elena Ertner, Director of the Institute of Philology and Journalism. “Joining forces in the sphere of social and humanitarian education is a very long-awaited and informed decision”.

The staff of both institutes initiated the merger for several valid reasons.

One of the main reasons was the overdue transformation of humanitarian disciplines and the need to identify their place in the future of the university and their contribution to putting UTMN on the international academic map. Taking into consideration that the humanities and social sciences account for 60% of the university’s educational programmes, the 5-100 International Council, headed by Deputy Chair of the Government of the Russian Federation Olga Golodets, advised UTMN to “find tasks and partners for the humanitarian departments which will make them truly world-class and formulate clearer routes for these spheres on the university roadmap”.

“We still have a lot of work ahead of us in transforming humanitarian education in the digital age. We are already developing a unique core syllabus for all UTMN students, considering new bachelor and masters programmes such as “Oriental Studies”, “Conflictology”, “International Regional Studies”, “Methods of Working with Big Data in the Socio-humanitarian Sphere” and many others,” said UTMN Rector Valery Falkov. “I am confident in the decision to support the initiative of the two institutes”.

The structure of departments and the number of teaching staff will remain unchanged. All students will receive a UTMN diploma in their chosen field of study.