The fourth visit of the students from Japan to St Petersburg University was part of the programme in Global Educational Programme to Prepare Specialists under Multilinguistic System in Russia, Japan, CIS, and Baltic States that is implemented by the University of Tsukuba.  

Established 140 years ago, the University of Tsukuba is ranked in the top ten universities in Japan and has approximately 10,000 undergraduate students and 7,000 graduate and post-graduate students. The University of Tsukuba is a partner-university with 316 universities in 61 countries. A total body of international students is 2,500 students from over 100 countries.  

St Petersburg University finds the relationship beneficial and hopes to increase collaboration with the University of Tsukuba, said the Director of the Admissions Office Aleksandr Babich. “We have been long since partner-universities with the University of Tsukuba and it ensures we are successful in implementing the exchange programmes. To that end, the Ministry of Education of Japan allocates grants to the students of St Petersburg University, — said Aleksandr Babich. — Our students in philology are participating in the exchange with the University of Tsukuba”.

SPbU successfully implements an agreement on collaboration and exchange in Philology. It is currently negotiating the opportunities to bring amendments to the agreement as students in other subject fields are also interested in the exchange.

In 2017, 53 students studied in the institutions in Japan, among them is Osaka University and the University of Tokyo. At the University of Tsukuba, currently there are two students from SPbU.

Thanks to the grant we have received from the Ministry of Education of Japan, we are planning to expand our collaboration with the universities of Russia.

Researcher at the University of Tsukuba Grigorii Misochko

“We hope that our students will be more and more interested in studying in Russia, want to study Russian to apply for traineeship programmes in Russia, — said the researcher at the University of Tsukuba Grigorii Misochko who accompanied the group of Japanese students. — Today, one of our students is studying at SPbU who also visited the University last year”.

The delegation comprised the undergraduate and graduate students in various subject fields from the University of Tsukuba, some of them studying Russian as a second foreign language. The delegation visited the Museum of History at SPbU and learnt what programmes the University offered in Russian and English languages.