This project is implemented by ITMO University, the Government of Russia, and the Government of St. Petersburg within the national program Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation. According to the program, 25 world-class campuses are to be constructed in Russia by 2030, following the President’s order.

ITMO Highpark will become a driver of development in St. Petersburg. The new campus will be located in the Pushkinsky District, alongside the up-and-coming Yuzhny satellite city, which is a strategic project of the city of St. Petersburg. It is expected that over 9.6 million square meters of real estate – both residential, commercial, and administrative – will be constructed within the new city. ITMO Highpark will take up an area of 86 ha and create over 12,000 new jobs.

What ITMO Highpark will look like

The center will consist of a campus for Master’s and PhD students, a techno valley, and a business park for tech companies.

Stage one of construction includes the main academic building, a portion of the university’s dorms, and a power park. In total, these take up 66,500 square meters.

The main academic building, with a total area of 32,800 square meters and designed to accommodate 1,600 students, will in fact consist of nine separate buildings under a shared disc-shaped roof. Apart from facilities for work and study, the main campus will also include coworking spaces for individual and team work, a lab for express prototyping of devices, a digital library, a food court, book and souvenir shops, as well as parking spaces for car- and scooter-sharing services. The first two dorms, with a combined area of 33,000 square meters, will house nearly 1,100 students in mostly one- or two-bedroom apartments.

Phase one is set to be completed in 2025.

This is not to say that the university is about to move: ITMO’s campus in central St. Petersburg will be used by Bachelor’s and Master’s students engaged in fundamental research, while ITMO Highpark will welcome those Master’s and PhD students who develop applied, commercializable projects.

The second and third stages of the project include the construction of three research centers with a total area of 36,000 square meters, which will house 50 international laboratories and no less than five innovative production facilities, as well as sports facilities (22,000 square meters) and dormitories (43,278 square meters). As the final sections within the third stage, three multifunctional science and business centers will be constructed, including a data processing center.

ITMO Highpark PJSC is responsible for implementing the project, while the Studio 44 architectural bureau, one of Russia’s largest privately-owned design companies, provides designs for each of the stages. For their work on the first stage of ITMO Highpark, Studio 44 have already received multiple awards, including the international Golden Trezzini Award and the Zodchestvo Architectural Festival's Grand Prix. The studio is currently developing the second stage of the project.

Construction progress

The tender for construction of the first phase of ITMO Highpark was awarded to the company PolitekhStroy, with the work having started in the spring of 2023. In August 2023, Valery Falkov, the Minister of Science and Higher Education, Alexander Beglov, the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Vladimir Vasilyev, the Rector of ITMO University, laid the first stone on the future site of ITMO Highpark, giving a symbolic start to the construction of the research and innovation center.

Utilities and transport infrastructure. Currently, ITMO Highpark has a completed network of engineering communications for the first construction stage, as well as purification plants for storm sewage.

In late 2023, the first part of the project’s transport network was completed and the second is slated to be finished in late 2024.

According to a decision from the Government of St. Petersburg, ITMO Highpark will gain access to the Kiyevskoye Shosse highway. A 700-meter-long stretch of road from the interchange towards Kondakopshino and up to the administrative border of St. Petersburg will be equipped with six lanes, 4.5-meter-wide sidewalks, and a bike lane. Bus stops will also be installed to service the relevant bus routes. All the necessary infrastructural requirements for ITMO Highpark have been accounted for in the city’s general plan.

Work on the utilities and transport infrastructure of ITMO Highpark are funded by the city of St. Petersburg. PJSC Megamade is the general contractor for the first stage of the project.

Campus construction. As of early 2024, the main construction objectives are the main academic building and two dormitories. 

The main academic building (consists of 10 sections): the construction pit is complete and the preparatory works are nearly done: the foundation frames are being cemented in and the walls of the below-ground technical floors are being built.

Dormitory 1 (consists of 4 sections and a technical basement): the construction pit is complete; wall and bed drainage is 100% complete, the monolith foundation frames have been cemented in, and the technical floor is complete. Currently, foundation frames, as well as the walls of the basement and the first floor, and the ceiling frames of the first floor are being installed.

Dormitory 2 (consists of 3 sections and a technical basement): the construction pit and drainage systems are complete. Foundation frames, as well as the walls of the basement and the first floor, and ceiling frames are being installed.

Over 400 construction workers and 30 units of construction machinery are working on site, with work proceeding according to the schedule.

The construction of buildings is funded from the federal budget.

Project funding and investments

A total of 16.7 billion rubles have been allotted towards the construction of ITMO Highpark between 2017 and 2023, with 12.3 billion rubles coming from the federal budget and 4.4 billion – from the budget of St. Petersburg.

In 2024, another 900 million rubles will be allocated to the project, with 700 million rubles from the federal budget and 200 million rubles – from the city’s funds.

The total volume of investments is expected to amount to 48.6 billion rubles, with 42.9 billion coming from the federal budget and 5.7 billion – from the budget of St. Petersburg.

Moreover, residents and private investors are expected to join the project once it’s complete. ITMO Highpark already has partnership agreements with the first future residents of its techno valley: the company OBIT and the Robotics Consortium.