Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks during a meeting of the MGIMO Supervisory Board, Moscow, February 26, 2024

Colleagues,

Friends,

I am delighted to welcome you to this meeting of the MGIMO Supervisory Board, and the Board of Trustees. This is a joint meeting, which has become a good tradition. Last time we met was three years ago. The pandemic scuttled our plans, but we worked remotely following our routine. The Supervisory Board went about its functions and made the necessary decisions on the University’s day-to-day business. The trustees continued to provide MGIMO with the necessary support as well. However, the in-person meetings here at the Foreign Ministry's Reception House on Spiridonovka Street are unique experience. I am glad that we now can return to the face-to-face format.

I would like to note that a planned rotation took place on the Supervisory Board. I am happy to welcome new members, including Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Vladislav Panchenko, General Director of the State Tretyakov Gallery and MGIMO graduate Yelena Pronicheva, and Deputy Moscow Mayor for Economic Policy and Property and Land Relations Vladimir Yefimov, also a MGIMO graduate.

The Board of Trustees membership was adjusted as well, because MGIMO is expanding into new areas and needs the support of the people who represent areas that provide additional training. It is comforting to know that the influence of the Board of Trustees and, accordingly, the weight of the University are increasing.

I don’t think we should cover specifically the developments in Ukraine, or the fact that the special military operation has given a major boost to long-term trends towards the end of the centuries-long hegemony of the Western minority and the formation of a more equitable multipolar international order.

As we can see with each day now, the collective West is not relaxing its efforts to systematically contain Russia, while the countries of the Global South and the Global East that represent the Global Majority have not only refused to join the anti-Russia sanctions, but stand ready to promote cooperation with us across a wide range of areas.

The Games of the Future 2024 in Kazan show that there are healthy forces in the West that seek to promote relations between all peoples of our planet rather than following the self-serving confrontational policies of those who, by a twist of fate, found themselves at the helm of respective Western governments.

MGIMO takes these circumstances into consideration in its practical work, as it handles its internal transformation caused by sweeping changes in the global geopolitical landscape with dignity. The circle of foreign partners gets constantly adjusted, and curricula and research programmes are being updated.

We refer to the ongoing developments rather simplistically as the “pivot to the East,” but Russia has never turned away from the East, just as it is not turning away from the West now. The West has turned away from us, but by virtue of its geographical location, history, culture and traditions our country remains open to honest cooperation with all nations along the perimeter of our borders and beyond. My recent travel to Latin America confirmed that Russia is loved and is welcome to attend various events as often as possible. People want to come to Russia on government and unofficial visits, and they want to come to study in Russia.

MGIMO has restored the teaching of many rare languages. This may be called a “pivot to the East” or simply a reflection of the requirements of the times. This is a fact and we welcome it. The number of groups of Asian languages has been increased in all departments and additional programmes on economic regional studies of non-Western countries and legal support for Russian businesses in the Asian markets have been drafted. Owing to the MGIMO Endowment and the Potanin Foundation, MGIMO managed to reorient its large-scale programme of student internships and undergraduate hands-on experience to Asia, Africa and Latin America. 

These efforts by MGIMO ensure that the students who come to work in the Foreign Ministry on Smolenskaya Square will be well educated. MGIMO graduates are still in demand in other ministries and departments, the corporate sector, journalism and political science, to name a few.

We know this well. Russia continues developing as a country open to the world. I am pleased to say that we have managed to preserve the English language bachelor’s and master’s programmes for foreign students wishing to study Russia, including its foreign policy.

Foreign teachers continue working in the university. MGIMO has expanded the map of where its foreign students hail from. It has established a specialised master’s programme in the Russia-ASEAN Centre for students from Southeast Asian countries. It has also started working with African applicants. They came to study in September 2023 and were the first to live in the university’s new dormitory that had just been opened. I visited it. The dormitory is good. I am glad for students to have comfortable conditions to “recharge” in during their intensive studies.

The opening of the World Youth Festival in the context of Russia’s current BRICS chairmanship presents additional opportunities for expanding the university’s academic ties given the higher number of foreign students in attendance. Thus, BRICS will hold its legal forum at MGIMO next September. The university retains its status as an important international academic venue. The Russian-ASEAN Centre, the Sochi Dialogue (initially the Russia-Austria Dialogue) and the Andrei Karlov Russian-Turkish Memorial Foundation operate out of the university. The Russia-China high-level expert dialogue is making steady headway. The university maintains working contacts with pragmatic experts from Japan and South Korea regardless of the biased US-oriented policy of the ruling regimes in Tokyo and Seoul. It maintains productive cooperation in organising foreign internships and implementing educational programmes with its partners in Türkiye, China and the UAE.

I would like to make special mention of MGIMO’s Tashkent branch. In addition to higher education programmes, it has its own lyceum that follows the traditions we have started creating in our country (in Moscow and the Moscow Region). Tashkent has opened a test-taking centre for the Unified State Examination (USE) for those pursuing Russian educational standards. There is a promising joint project with Rosatom to build a school at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Türkiye.

The efforts to help Russian Olympic athletes adapt to the new realities deserve special mention. They are conducted via MGIMO educational programmes, funds for the support of Olympians and the Russian Olympic Committee. Russian athletes study non-Western elements of the international sports movement. I have no doubt that understanding what is happening in the global sports movement and the need to make it truly democratic and depoliticised will lead to big new opportunities. There will be demand for specialists grappling with the new reality and developing promising ways of leading the international sports movement out of the crisis into which it is being plunged by the current executives of the sports federations of the International Olympic Committee.

MGIMO is actively implementing its digital transformation programme. The emphasis is rightly laid on new partnerships with industry leaders. As part of the Priority-2030 programme for developing Russian universities, over a thousand MGIMO students are studying programming based on the Sber ecosystem. This is a wonderful partnership. Together with this organisation, MGIMO is drafting national certifications in foreign languages. Experts have created information and analytical systems on international political issues related to food security, global agrarian markets and the investment appeal of Russian regions. These are timely and important issues.

We are giving priority to the goals that President of Russia Vladimir Putin sets before the Government on a weekly, if not daily, basis. By the end of 2024, all of these systems will be converted from pilot to regular operation. The new joint Master’s degree programme of MGIMO and the State Tretyakov Gallery is aimed at implementing new projects in museum studies and cultural interaction.  The importance of history and, in this context, the role of museums in keeping historical facts and our culture and passing them to younger generations can hardly be overestimated.

A quarter of a century has passed since the establishment of the MGIMO International Institute of Energy Policy and Diplomacy (MIEP).We expect the publication of a fundamental research work this year (it took a long time to complete). It is devoted to cardinal changes in the global energy landscape. MIEP sections within the Department of International Relations will be re-launched, and a special Master’s degree programme on the political and institutional aspects of global energy will be developed.

I can  say, not in a shy way, that research at MGIMO has been brought up to standard. The university publishes and supports almost twenty scientific journals, some of which have top rankings on the Scopus international abstract and citation database. The university is one of the leaders in the Russian scientific citation index. Monographs from the past two years are displayed at the exhibition in the lobby of our mansion. All new areas of the educational process are promptly provided with their own manuals or guides. Importantly, the university also publishes analytical yearbooks on vital issues of international security, agricultural markets and the environmental and social sustainability of Russian regions. More and more research is being carried out in the regions.

This aligns perfectly with the concept of strengthening the Russian Federation and increasing the independence of the regions and their responsibility for modern forms of development and education for young people.

The publication of a book on current international relations and Russia’s foreign policy is expected in the near future, which is particularly important for us as diplomats. It will be interesting to see how the expert community will assess our daily work. This is an important aspect of our activities because it promotes mutual enrichment of science and practice. A three-volume edition on the history of diplomacy is being upgraded.

In our assessment, MGIMO’s financial and economic policy meets modern requirements. The stable income, two-thirds of which come from the university’s own funds and only one-third from the state budget, is a unique factor for the Russian academic environment. The MGIMO Endowment continues to play a major financial role. MGIMO closely cooperates with Moscow and the Moscow Region, where it is based, and we are pleased to see Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyev, who is a very strong supporter of efforts to strengthen the educational system in his region at all levels. I would like to thank him, and the other executives of the Moscow Region and the Odintsovo Urban District for their assistance in building a hostel on the Odintsovo campus. It has already become a centre that attracts those who wish to study MGIMO disciplines.

I would like to note that the election of Academician Anatoly Torkunov as a member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences reflects the recognition of the role of our alma mater in the Russian academic system. The same can be seen in his participation in the Public Council at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Presidential Council for Science and Education.

I would like to urge all of you not to stop at what you have accomplished. We can say many good things about MGIMO. Today, we have only mentioned a few of its achievements. As always, we must strive for perfection, knowing that there are no limits. This applies to all institutions, including the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. There is always room for improvement.

The demand in the world for MGIMO education is not just high, but it continues to grow. We feel this. All quotas must be used. It is important to be flexible and responsive to all requirements. If there is a higher demand than supply somewhere, it is always possible to resolve this problem by promptly giving it our attention. It is important to make sure that all those who want to study at our university (provided that they meet the criteria) are given this opportunity.  

Every foreign graduate (as we have already seen) becomes more than just a conduit for our ideas. After graduating from MGIMO, these foreigners return home and start working with a comprehensive understanding of the Russian Federation’s role in modern society. Most importantly, they understand the Russian people. Our people are always open to the closest international cooperation. They have never supported autarky.

This year, MGIMO will celebrate its 80th anniversary. A comprehensive programme of events has been prepared. Mr Torkunov will tell us about it in more detail. I would like to note that we are resuming the practice of international forums for graduates, which were suspended during the pandemic. An anniversary meeting will take place in Moscow. However, some of our fraternal allies are also interested in hosting anniversary events. Some countries have many MGIMO graduates, including in top government positions. Our friends from Belarus and Kazakhstan have already approached us. They would like to host meetings of graduates or other forums dedicated to MGIMO’s 80th anniversary. We are open to all proposals.

The more events like this take place, the better it is for the university. These are not just symbolic gatherings. Participants in such meetings (I have participated in them myself) develop a sense of corporate solidarity in the best sense of the term. This feeling is invaluable. Let us preserve and strengthen it.