Published on: 2026-07-09
Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –
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The festival of projects for the course “Fundamentals of Project Activities” was held at the Russian-Armenian University — the final event of the third cycle of the course, which RAU implements jointly with Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Students defended projects, participated in master classes, received feedback from experts, and presented solutions for real clients. For the joint project of SPbPU and RAU, the festival became a confirmation of the main result of three years of work: Polytech’s educational technology has taken root at the partner university and has reached a new level.
The OPD course is one of the Polytechnic’s own educational developments, based on students solving real problems, teams being supervised by mentors, evaluating project results, and developing entrepreneurial thinking. The technological platform for the course implementation is the LMS Moodle, using specialized modules developed by specialists from the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Center for Open Education (COE). Technical support for the course is also provided by COE specialists. At RAU, this technology was not simply transferred as is but adapted to the university’s educational environment, its programs, teaching team, and the requests of Armenian partners. SPbPU provided methodological support for the course, training for mentors, consulting support, work with project logic, and evaluation of results.
The dynamics over three years show the scale of changes. In the pilot launch of the 2023/2024 academic year, only 34 students of one educational program participated, and seven team projects were launched. In 2025, the course grew noticeably: 20 project teams were admitted to the in-person defense, and 17 of them presented significant educational and product results. In 2026, about 175 students from more than 30 teams took part in the course.
After a successful pilot launch, the OPD course is included as a mandatory part of the main programs “Economics,” “Tourism,” “Trade,” “Hotel Management,” and “Management,” and is offered as an elective for several other programs. For the new 2026 cycle, the team of mentors was expanded: 16 new RAU instructors completed training at SPbPU, the course implementation regulations were approved, and RAU developed its own OPD logo. Throughout the year, SPbPU representatives worked several times with colleagues in Yerevan, helping to adapt the methodology and build a sustainable project-based learning model.
It is fundamentally important for us that this is not about copying a course, but about transferring an educational technology to a new environment. The methodology of OPD was developed at Polytech as a tool for students to work on real problems, and at RAU it received its own development. Today, it can be said that the course has not just been implemented but has become part of the university’s educational practice, noted Anton Ambrazhey, senior researcher at the International Academic Competence Center “Intelligent Enterprise Technologies” of the PISH “Digital Engineering” at SPbPU.
In addition to Anton Ambrazhey, the festival involved senior lecturer of the Higher School of Project Activities and Innovation in Industry Inna Seledtsova, acting director of the Higher School of Technological Entrepreneurship Artur Kireev, and chief project engineer of the Higher School of Technological Entrepreneurship Pavel Kozlovsky. Experts from Polytechnic served on the jury, conducted master classes, and discussed the further development of the course with the RAU mentors.
Project activities at RAU have become a tool that allows students to apply knowledge to solve real problems, develop critical thinking, initiative, teamwork skills, and project management. A significant role in this process was played by interaction with SPbPU experts: students received professional evaluations of their projects, and teachers had the opportunity to exchange practices for organizing project-based learning.
The implementation of the course “Fundamentals of Project Activities” became an example for us of how inter-university cooperation goes beyond the exchange of experience and turns into joint work on the development of student initiatives, emphasized Ruzanna Ayrapetova, Head of the Department of Educational Policy and Quality Control of Education at RAU.
A distinctive feature of the third cycle was the full involvement of the Armenian industry. Alongside RAU units, project customers included ROQ Capital, Freedom Broker Armenia, the medical network Wellmed, Flocktory, and other organizations. The subjects of the projects became more technologically oriented: students presented solutions in the fields of FinTech, tourism, ecology, healthcare, marketing, career services, and university environment development. Several teams achieved results with high commercialization potential.
The festival concluded with the defense of the best projects and an awards ceremony. The first place was taken by the team of the project “Updating the guidebook for students,” the second place by the project “Development and presentation of certain local acts of RAU,” and the third place by the project “Development of a test system for detecting viral infections in fish.” Nine projects were recommended for further development in an acceleration program, demonstrating a shift in the course from educational project work to creating solutions capable of growing as entrepreneurial initiatives.
The next stage in the project’s development should be the systematic commercialization of its results. The transition from educational projects to the creation of solutions with market potential will allow the transformation of the most promising student developments into products, technologies, and startups, — noted Ripsime Kodjoyan, Head of the Department of Management and Business at RAU.
Following the festival, not only the student teams and RAU mentors were recognized. Experts from Polytech — Anton Ambrazhey, Artur Kireev, Pavel Kozlovsky, and Inna Seledtsova — received gratitude from the rector of the Russian-Armenian University, Edward Sandoyan, for their active contribution to the development of project-based learning at the university.
Expert support from colleagues at SPbPU gave students the opportunity to present their projects to the professional community, receive meaningful feedback, and see prospects for further development of their ideas. We thank our colleagues from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University for their openness to collaboration, high level of expertise, and contribution to the development of project-based learning,” emphasized Ruzanna Ayrapetova at the festival closing ceremony.
The OPD project festival showed that the Russian-Armenian University is forming its own ecosystem of project activities, technological entrepreneurship, and collaboration with industrial partners. The educational development of Polytech became the foundation for a new level of practice-oriented training for RAU students.
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Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University acts as the coordinator of the project for the development of Slavic universities, uniting the Russian-Armenian, Belarusian-Russian, Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic, and Russian-Tajik Slavic universities. In this role, the Polytechnic supports the implementation of modern educational practices, the development of project-based learning, the professional development of teachers, the launch of joint educational programs, and the formation of sustainable models of scientific and educational cooperation between universities.
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