Ural Federal University

The Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin universitet imeni pervogo Prezidenta Rossii B.N. Yelʹtsina, often shortened to UrFU, УрФУ) (formed by a merger of the Ural State Technical University and Ural State University) is one of the leading educational institutions in the Ural region of Russia. Ural Federal University acts as a research and innovation center of the Ural region and cooperates with the Russian Academy of Sciences. UrFU offers educational programs in four main areas of knowledge and 108 academic majors. There are actively developed links between the university and intermediate educational institutions. UrFU also consistently works on establishing strategic partnerships with employers for the sake of development of the regional economy: employers are involved in the educational environment as direct participants, enployers-sponsored and corporate education is carried out based on the client-centered approach, joint business projects are realized in economic and social areas.

The Ural University was established in the town of Ekaterinburg in 1920 by the decree of the head of Soviet revolutionary government Vladimir Lenin. However, the newly-born university underwent a number of changes due to the lack of resources in such circumstances as revolution and civil war. Finally, the university split into two: Ural State University (USU), a smaller university responsible for education in natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, and Ural Polytechnic Institute (USTU-UPI), a larger one which was focused on training engineers in areas such as metallurgy, machine-building, civil engineering and power engineering.

At the same time, UPI was developing several new (for the time) areas of knowledge like nuclear energetics, organic chemistry and synthesis, and telecommunications.