TSU is the oldest university of Siberia with 140-year history

Tomsk State University (TSU) was founded in 1878 as an Imperial Tomsk university and became the first university in the Asian part of Russia. Today TSU is a classical university of research type, the center of science, education and innovations, is among the universities – leaders of the federal project 5-100.

The foundation of the university in Tomsk was established by the decree of the State Council of the Russian Empire dated May 28 (May 16, old style) of 1878.

The University buildings were designed by the St. Petersburg architect Alexander Bruni and creatively embodied by the Tomsk architect Pavel Naranovich.

The university was founded on August 26, 1880 and was opened on July 22, 1888 with one faculty - medical (since 1930 - Tomsk Medical Institute, now SSMU). Classes began on September 13, 1888, with a lecture by Professor Sergei Korzhinsky "What is life?". The second faculty of the university - the law faculty was opened only in 1898.

In 1998, the TSU by decree of the Russian president was included in the state code of especially valuable objects of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation. In April 2010, the university received the status of a national research university. In 2013 entered the top 15 leading universities in Russia, which receive state support for entering the first hundred universities of world rankings.

Now there are 20 faculties and educational institutes, three research institutes and 38 centers of pre-university training and career guidance in the cities of Siberia and Kazakhstan in the structure of the university. Almost 16 thousand students study at the university (in 2017 23 964 applications were submitted to TSU) in 135 directions and specialties, 738 graduate students, of which 115 foreigners, more than 100 doctoral students in 36 specialties. Education in the graduate school is conducted in 20 curricula, of which seven programs are with dual leadership.

The university employs about 600 doctors and 1300 candidates of science, 51 laureates of the State Prize of the Russian Federation, there are 24 dissertational councils; about 20 doctoral and 100 candidate dissertations are defended each year.

At different times about 100 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (RAMS) and the Academies of Sciences of the CIS countries, more than 250 laureates of the State Prize, and two Nobel Prize winners studied and worked at the TSU.

Five teams of TSU scientists in recent years have been awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology, the RF Government prize in the field of science and technology, the RF President's prize in the field of education; 43 scientific schools entered the presidential list of leading scientific schools in Russia.

Fundamental scientific research is conducted on the basis of the Siberian Physical-Technical Institute, the Research Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, the Research Institute of Biology and Biophysics, the Siberian Botanical Garden, Herbarium and 66 world-class scientific laboratories in which both Tomsk and foreign scientists work. In total 193 foreign scientists and post-graduates work at the university.

TSU is the largest information center, which includes the National Library of Science (four million copies of publications), the Federal Resource Center for Scientific, Methodological, Personnel and Material and Technical Support for the Development of Unified Educational Information Environment in the SFD, Institute for Distance Education, Tomsk Regional Teleport.

The university has a developed innovative infrastructure, including educational centers, scientific and innovative centers (8 centers of excellence, 48 RECs, 12 CCUs, Interuniversity Training Center for SEZ Tomsk and others), equipped with the most modern and unique equipment, including the supercomputer SKIF Cyberia (63 , 7 TFlops).

TSU includes more than 43 companies, including 37 enterprises are open in the framework of Federal Law № 217 in the belt of small innovative enterprises. In 2014, under the program of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, the Engineering Chemistry and Technology Center (ICTC) was established for the commercialization of TSU developments, the turnover of which in 2017 amounted to 100 million rubles and which introduced 50 new products and chemical technologies.

In 2017, the TSU, in conjunction with the SeedFund, established the first university venture fund in Russia with a total volume of 33.3 million rubles. The maximum amount of the fund's investments in one project is 8 million rubles.

The University takes prestigious positions in Russian and international rankings: entered the top ten among Russian universities in the world ranking of THE (group 501-600 of the world THE raking); 323 place in the top 400 of the world's best universities Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and the fourth among the Russian universities included in the QS rating of universities in the BRICS countries; 217 place in the ranking of RoundUniversityRanking (RUR), and in this ranking TSU is among the top three best universities in Russia in almost all subject areas.

TSU develops large-scale international cooperation with leading educational and research centers, implements projects on the most prestigious grants of the largest funds (Carnegie Corporation, New Eurasia Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, CRDF Foundation) and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in the development of both humanities and physics and mathematics.

Projects have been completed for 15 grants of the European TEMPUS program with the Sheffield University, Utrecht and Oxford; TSU joined the Europlanet consortium; 16 projects are being implemented within the framework of the Federal Target Program for Support of Research and Development, 127 projects of the Ministry of Education and Science, 132 university projects are supported by grants from the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation and the Russian Federal Property Fund, and 26 by grants from the Russian Science Foundation.

TSU professors are invited to lecture at Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, Heidelberg and other foreign universities.