NEWSWATCH: “European University at St Petersburg faces research-only future. With latest application for teaching licence rejected in long-running battle with authorities, time is running out to start the new academic year” – Times Higher Education (UK)
“Russia’s ‘European’ university is contemplating a future as a research-only institution …. The European University at St Petersburg, a private postgraduate institution, has been wrangling with the government since last year, when it endured a series of snap inspections by authorities and had its teaching licence suspended. Officials claimed that EUSP, which has just 250 students and offers courses in the social sciences and humanities, had violated up to 120 rules and regulations. Infractions included not possessing its own gym (the university rents one in a different building) and lacking stands displaying anti-alcohol messages. However, the university said that the inspections were instigated by an official complaint from Vitaly Milonov, a member of the Russian parliament for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party, who expressed concern about the teaching of gender studies at the institution. …”