12.04.2021

Digital technologies have become an indispensable part of life in modern cities. They help us avoid overscheduling, improve infrastructure, and introduce innovations into industry. The new master’s programme Master in Smart City Management (MSC) aims to prepare managers, analysts, and policymakers who will be able to make decisions and address pressing issues in urban development and city management.

The programme will be of interest to those who are planning for employment in smart-city development. What underpins the programme is an approach that bridges theory and practice in city development. Among its academic staff are both Russian and international lecturers as well as people who are practically engaged in city management. The programme will respond to the challenges relating to the ever-increasing demand for high calibre specialists in city management during the era of digitisation and incorporation of the concept of smart city in our life. Students are introduced to a wide range of disciplines that focus on analytical tools and practice in smart city management. Graduates have a broad set of analytical skills and skills of designing urban policy, including skills for big data analysis. In the programme, there is considerable emphasis placed on soft skills and a practice-oriented approach. Students are actively engaged in projects that focus on smart city development. These projects are initiated by real-life customers, and students are guided through the process by academic staff of the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University. Almost 70% of the disciplines of the programme are taught in English. Students have an opportunity to spend the third semester at a partner-university abroad within the framework of the exchange programmes.

Research mainly focuses on analysing smart-city projects, basic institutional constraints, urban and regional strategic planning, marketing, territory branding in digital transformations, and relations between the public sector and business.

Smart-city development in the epoch of intensive digitisation of the economy needs specialists who are expected to have the following skills:

• operational thinking, an ability to understand the butterfly effect of any urban project
• an ability to use modern sources of information and modern approaches to processing and analysing information
• an ability to use the experience of other cities and understand the difference between the institutional conditions and circumstances of different cities

Graduates are analysts who are able to initiate and develop projects that bring together the public sector and business.

Graduates can proceed to employment in: municipal public administrations; companies that implement urban development projects, including smart-city development projects; natural monopolies; consulting; and planning and designing organisations to name but a few.

The programme is full-time. It has government-funded places and places on a fee-paying basis. The duration is two years. Further information about the programme is available here. To hear more about Master in Smart City Management at St Petersburg University, visit our video presentation.

Please note that you can apply online for the master’s programmes at the official website of the University starting from 1 March 2021. Click on the link to learn more about the Admissions Calendar.