HSE University – St Petersburg and the State Hermitage Museum Sign a Cooperation Agreement

On December 18, Sergey Kadochnikov, Director of HSE University – St Petersburg, and Georgy Vilinbakhov, Deputy General Director of the State Hermitage Museum, signed an agreement on cooperation between the university and the museum in the education and research.

The agreement involves conducting applied and fundamental research, organizing joint conferences, lectures, round tables and other events, and museum internships for students, postgraduates, and HSE faculty members.

HSE students will enjoy an opportunity to participate in the wide range of events organized by the State Hermitage Museum, including the 'Student Day', 'Intellectual Marathon', and classes at the Student Club. The Student Club involves a number of sections which are run by both the museum staff and invited specialists. The classes are aimed at expanding and deepening the knowledge of young people about the museum collection and the world’s culture heritage. The parties also agreed to develop and implement an information policy in regard to youth outreach.

The cooperation begun with the research and practical  conference 'Space of The Modern Museum: Architecture, Exhibitions, Audience' that took place on December 18 at the lecture hall of the General Staff Building.

The core reports were devoted to examining the experience of working with the young audience in the world’s museums; interaction with modern viewers; and the programmes for young people organized by the State Hermitage Museum.

The agreement will be in effect until 2023. 

Georgy Vilinbakhov

Deputy General Director of the State Hermitage Museum

'The agreement is very successful – because it immediately came into force with the conference 'Space of The Modern Museum: Architecture, Exhibitions, Audience' which marked the beginning of long-term cooperation. Our dialogue will be continued. This will be a conversation about museums in the 21 century and those areas of cooperation that we can develop under the collaborative work'.

Sergey Kadochnikov
Director of HSE University – St Petersburg

'This cooperation has a special value for us. As well as the Higher School of Economics, the Hermitage State Museum is a combination of classics and modernity, traditions and innovations. We give a lot of thoughts to changes so that education does not fail to keep pace with life. Life in the Hermitage is in full swing, and we hope that our cooperation will result not only in joint conferences and internships for students, but also new educational projects'.

It is expected that the results of cooperation between the university and the museum will be interesting for the students from the programmes in 'Design', 'History of Art' or 'Applied Cultural Studies'. The State Hermitage Museum extensively uses modern multimedia technologies, which might serve as a foundation for collaborating with students of 'Sociology and Social Informatics' and 'Big Data Analysis in Business, Economy, and Society' programmes.

HSE University already has the experience of cooperation with museums. In October 2018, the joint department with Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) was established at St Petersburg campus. The main purpose of the joint department is teaching of highly qualified specialists in the field of anthropology, ethnology and museology.

In November 2018, the university signed an agreement with the State Russian Museum. Both institutions had cooperated in the field of event marketing before. As part of the agreement, the students of 'History' and 'Design' programmes are invited to design exhibitions and to other projects of the Russian Museum.

In March 2018, the HSE Academic Council of the HSE approved the decision to establish the joint department with Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. The experts of the museum developed and launched the university-wide minor ‘Modern Art: Introduction to History and Museum and Exhibition "ractice’. The minor offers first hand experience of studying contemporary art. Next year, the Master's programme 'Practices of Contemporary Art and Curatorship’ is going to be launched.

In addition to long-term agreements, HSE has experience in joint projects with the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, and the Polytechnic Museum.