The Academic Council of the private European University in St. Petersburg decided on June 19 to close the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University. In 2016 the University was deprived of its licence after a complaint from Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov, who objected to a Gender Studies Centre at the university. He also claimed that such studies could be used to prepare supporters for a colour revolution, according to the UK Defense Intelligence.
The university appealed to Putin to intervene and its licence was later returned. However, in 2023 the university was being investigated for “extremism” (a catch-all term used by the russian authorities to describe any activity potentially critical of the Kremlin). The university has been a center of academic freedom and hence an irritant to the authorities following the turn to greater authoritarianism since Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 and the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Presidential Administration has taken closer control of universities. It has imposed an obligatory course on the Foundations of russian Statehood and dismissed some academics critical of the war. Various universities have closed programmes of studies that the Kremlin might deem to be subversive.
Isolation since the launch of the war has likely damaged russian science. A recent article in Vedomosti reported on a survey made by Nature magazine of the top 500 scientific research institutions in the world. Over the last 12 months the russian Academy of Sciences dropped 23 places from 71st to 94th. Moscow State University also dropped in the rankings and now stands at 420th. Discussions at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum held at the end of June advocated a more obscurantist approach towards education with some participants criticizing the idea of learning foreign languages and supporting the replacement of “anti-state” textbooks.
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