On October 21, 1773, Catherine II wrote on the decree on the establishment of the engineering school for mining ‘may it be so’. This date became the birthday of all higher technical education in Russia.

Today St. Petersburg Mining University trains highly qualified engineering personnel for major Russian and foreign companies engaged in forecasting, prospecting, exploration, development and processing of the most important types of minerals - oil, gas, ores of noble, non-ferrous and rare metals, precious stones.

The university includes 8 faculties:  

• Geological Exploration; 
• Oil and Gas; 
• Mining; 
• Construction; 
• Mechanical and Mechanical Engineering; 
• Mineral Processing; 
• Economics; 
• Energy.

A diploma of Saint Petersburg Mining University is a mark of quality, a great ticket to life. The high potential of graduates, confirmed by their labour in various sectors of the economy, clearly demonstrates that the university makes a worthy contribution to the development of the intellectual potential of our society and the economic well-being of the country.

The history of the UNESCO Competence Centre dates back to 2012, when the World Forum of Resource Universities was established on the initiative of St. Petersburg Mining University and Freiberg Mining Academy. Participants of the Forum session developed proposals for UNESCO to unite all the world's leading core universities in order to address global issues of the world economy, train personnel and improve the safety and efficiency of raw materials utilisation.

The UNESCO Competence Centre's mission is in line with the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

One of the main objectives of the International Competence Centre for Mining Engineering Education is to form a unified approach to the quality of training and the level of minimum threshold knowledge of mining specialists. The Centre also contributes to the creation of favourable conditions for global mobility of students, postgraduates, teachers and scientists of the industry.

Areas of activity: 

• Carrying out joint innovative research on priority scientific areas of development of the mineral sector.
• Establishment of core educational and research centres on the basis of leading universities, raw materials and energy companies; holding major and socially significant international events to promote natural sciences and mining education.
• Creation of a unified system of international professional certification of specialists of the mineral and raw materials complex.
• Creation of conditions for global mobility of students, postgraduates and teaching staff of the world's universities of raw materials profile and expansion of inter-university co-operation.

The Consortium unites more than 100 universities whose areas of study are related to the training of specialists for Russia's mineral resource complex. 

The goal of the consortium is to increase the level of adaptation of higher education institutions to the demands of the labour market and further integration of large core companies, government authorities and universities.

Collaboration is based on the need to unite the efforts of higher education institutions to create a common educational space within the country by solving the following tasks:

• Consolidation of intellectual and material resources to improve teaching and methodological work.
  Expansion of publication activity.
• Increasing the competences of teachers.
• Providing access for all members of the consortium to the educational infrastructure and unique scientific equipment of the flagship universities.
• Accumulation of efforts in terms of influencing government structures in order to solve the problems existing in the mining and oil and gas industry, as well as in the system of higher technical education.