Moscow City Institute of Psychology and Education (since 2002 – University) was opened in accordance with the Moscow Committee of Education order of 2 October 1996 № 399 on the basis of the Moscow Government Resolution of 20 August 1996 № 702. MCUPE has been providing training of specialists by means of higher education programmes since 1997.
In 2002 MCUPE succeeded in getting through accreditation by the Russian Ministry of Education resulted in the university status conferring. In 2005 the University was reaccredited again and given a certificate of state accreditation № 1813 of 28 March 2005, valid till 2010.
The University has four buildings: Sretenka Street, 29; Rublevo township, Vasily Botylev Street, 31; Shelepikhinskaya Quay, 2A; Otkrytoe highway, 24/27. The total area is 23114,4m.
The University follows and implements traditions of the Russian psychological science and was open on the basis of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, the oldest one in Moscow founded by Professor Georgy Ivanovich Chelpanov, the famous Russian psychologist, in 1912.
At present, MCUPE and the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education cooperate as a unit scientific educational body “Psychology” and thus, training is based on integration of education and fundamental science.
The MCUPE teaching staff consists of 380 employees including 74 PhDs and 219 Candidates of Science, seven active and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Education and the Russian Academy of Science, 24 employees of the University are prize-winners of the President and Government of the Russian Federation Prizes in education. Four employees are prize-winners of the Mayor of Moscow.
The University has 11 faculties providing 12 specialties: Psychology of Education, Psychological Counseling, Social Psychology, Clinical and Special Psychology, Social Education, Information Technologies, Foreign Languages, Juridical Psychology, State and Municipal Management at Emergency Situations, Retraining faculty, and faculty of Distance Learning.
Besides, MCUPE provides postgraduate study with training at four scientific areas.
At present, about 6000 students study at the University.
Annually more than 1400 trainees (mostly educational personnel of Moscow) study at Retraining faculty.
All students pass long-term period of probation at the institution where they will work in future, then they pass attestation at the City Attestation Committee of the Moscow Educational Department. The majority of the University graduates work in social areas: schools, kinder gardens and psychological, medical and social centers. The University graduates also work in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Emergency Situations, and Ministry of Defense.
Programmes of secondary professional education are realized in the college of social education, the University’s structural body, providing three specialties.
Training before entrance exams to the University is carried out at training courses and within the system “Psychological class”.
The City Fundamental Psychological Library is opened on the basis of the University (it has four buildings in Moscow districts: Central, South-Western, Zelenograd and North-Eastern districts). The library houses more than 150 000 educational and scientific books.
Special attention is paid to the training and teaching of disabled children in the University. In 2006 the Institute of human technologies was opened for training students with special needs. At presents, the Institute has groups for students with physical and hearing impairments, the blind. Besides, the system of selection and training of gifted children with physical impairments is being approbated (a competition on the mathematics and informatics for selecting the cleverest university entrants has already become traditional). The faculty of clinical and special psychology has students with physical impairments (the first graduates were in 2004).
MCUPE carries out a broad scientific work along with a teaching process. Scientific researches are carried out at sub-faculties, in scientific laboratories, numerous University departments, in the Centre of emergence psychological treatment, Centre of scientific and pedagogical provision of applied educational psychology, Centre of social psychological problems of children, and in the Centre of social psychological adaptation for teenagers.
Special attention is paid at scientific research of students. A science community of young scientists and students and school of young scientists were opened for students and post-graduates. The school held more than 30 scientific training seminars; field winter and summer psychological schools are organized annually.
The University publishes journals “Psychological science and education”, “Moscow psychotherapeutic journal” and “Cultural historical psychology”. Dozens of textbooks and manuals for students of institutes of higher education had been published by the employees of the University.
The University is the leading educational and scientific center of psychological education in Moscow. The Service of applied psychology developed in MCUPE was highly estimated in the professional society (the 3rd meeting of educational psychologists service, 2003, Moscow; Constitutive meeting of Russian Educational Psychologists Federation, June 2003, Saint-Petersburg; the 1st International conference “Psychology of Education: problems and prospects”, December, 2004; the 2nd National scientific practical conference “Psychology of Education: Regional Experience”, December; Four Russian seminars – workshop in MCUPE with the Ministry of Education and Science). The MCUPE experience in the field of regional psychological service development is recommended at the federal level, this level is in the basis of the Federal programme of applied psychology service development by the Ministry of Education.
Within the frameworks of city psychological service the Centre of emergence psychological advice was created in the University. The tasks of the Centre are: fast and term psychological help provision to different categories of people, educational support to the anticrisis bodies based on psychological, medical and social centers in all districts of Moscow; retraining of the specialists dealing with emergence psychological help for the population.
In 2003 the Centre for the work with deviant teenagers (Frunzenskaya Quay, 36/2).
Bearing in mind the importance of psychological work with parents the Educational Television Studio for psychological programmes creating is beginning its work in MCUPE.
Aiming at qualified specialists training for the educational system and social area, the University is going to open new specialties, e.g. Juridical Psychology and Juvenile Justice, Political Psychology, and State Municipal Management for training specialists in emergence situations. In 2005 the University also was granted by the Ministry of Defense, and since then MCUPE carries out training of the officers in the field of psychology. The MCUPE project on military psychologists training is being realized.
MCUPE permanently works at the development of international contacts, broadening of international and interregional educational programmes, e.g. agreements with Wisconsin University (Madison, USA), the faculty of Education in Montclair University (New-Jersey, USA), University Paris-8 (Sorbonne, France), the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Science and the Chinese Association of Social Psychology, the Institutes of Italy, Japan and Slavonic Institutes of neighbouring countries. In 2005 MCUPE signed a memorandum with the Houston University (USA) and cooperation agreement with the Capital Pedagogical Peking University (China) and the Open University of Israel in 2006.
The University cooperates with UNESCO: holds joint international seminars, carries out projects on supporting and developing education in the Chechen Republic; 12 joint projects have already been carried out.
The University can be found in “The catalogue of universities” published by UNESCO Information centre on higher education issues.
One of the most important tasks is to create new model of educational process. It will help to integrate the education itself, science and practice; to combine fundamental training with practical direction; to organize educational process by means of clinic bases of the University.
Historical routes; Russian psychological tradition; integration with psychological high level of teachers’ proficiency; Academy of Education; creating the system of psychological support in educational and social fields are the main criteria of development of University as creative higher educational institute of education and psychology.
We invite everyone to study at our University!
