PetrSU Opened Humanities Innovation Park

The Humanities Innovation Park, a creative project space with centers and laboratories engaged in development of innovative products in humanities: Center for Genealogy and Family History, Research Laboratory of Local and Microhistory of Karelia, Laboratory for the Problems of Scandinavian Countries and Finland, Ethnographic Exposition of the Museum of History of PetrSU, Neoklassika Center, Laboratory for Linguistic Regional Studies and Language Ecology, WEB-Laboratory, textual group.

The Humanities Innovation Park is a unit that closely cooperates with the Scientific Library of PetrSU, Institutes, and Departments of the University working in the areas of humanities. The pivotal role in this cooperation is played by the Departments of Baltic and Finnish Philology, German Philology and Scandinavian Studies.

The Head of the Humanitarian Innovation Park Irina Suvorova opened the center and told about aims and plans of the organization:

“Today we open a unique unit of the university the Humanitarian Innovation Park, a new space for the development of humanitarian areas and implementation of innovative humanitarian projects. Of course, we have a whole range of critical tasks, among them, is the creation of optimal conditions for the formation of interdisciplinary mixed-age project groups able to generate and put social and humanitarian knowledge into practice. This will enhance PetrSU image as the Flagship University of Karelia.”

The Rector of PetrSU Anatoly Voronin wished the Humanitarian Innovation Park all the success and noted that with the opening of this unit the university has almost completed the work on the establishment of Innovation Parks at the university:

“In 2017 we launched the Youth Innopark, soon we will open the Pedagogic Innopark. Today we open the Humanitarian Innovation Park and it is a momentous occasion for us. I wish that this Park will become a meeting point for everyone who is interested in humanities, education. I hope that now that we have the Humanities Park we will meet more often and yield great results for the university and Karelia.”

The Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Karelia for Social Affairs Larisa Podsadnik said that the opening of the new park will give an impetus to the development of humanities:

“It is an amazing opportunity for teachers dedicated to their craft, students immersed in these sciences. This is good news for the Republic, city, which is called a collegial city. It is known all around our country; people everywhere know about Karelia, about PetrSU.”

The Director of the Institute of History, Political and Social Sciences Sergey Verigin congratulated everyone on the opening of the Park and noted that the university entrusts it with new projects, great hopes, the involvement of youth and that in time the Humanities Park can become a brand of both PetrSU and Karelia.

Anna Skoropadskaya, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Philology, Head of the Neoklassika Center, thanked the administration and the facilities administration of PetrSU that were instrumental to the establishment of the Park:

“Today marks the beginning of a new stage, but prior to that, there was the stage of preparation and implementation of ideas that existed in our heads, the heads of humanities scholars. Now we see the end result and we wish the Humanities Park to become the center of gravity for everyone who comes to our amazing university; we wish the students will get more involved in science, humanities.”

The Head of the Center for Genealogy and Family History Olga Kulakovskaya said that from now on everyone interested in their genealogy can consult the Humanities Park and added that on the premises of the Innopark the university has made the first product: a joint monograph on genealogy prepared by the employees of the Center and their colleagues from Saint Petersburg.

Elena Guseva, the Head of the Laboratory of Linguistic Regional Studies and Language Ecology talked about the creation of multimedia library on dialect vocabulary and onomatology of Karelia, expeditions to various regions of the Republic, the creation of a lexical atlas of Russian vernaculars, School of Linguistic Regional Studies “To the Roots”, and interregional contest “Own Land – Own Word”.

The Head of the WEB-Laboratory Irina Andrianova told about the meticulous work on the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, transcription and edition of the texts by the writer and Anna Grigorievna, his wife, on publishing scientific journals, the creation of electronic libraries, databases and information technologies in Russian philology.

Priority national project “Education”.