The State University of Infrastructure and Technologies is a young and, at the same time, one of the oldest educational institutions of Kyiv. It was established by the order issued by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine №151/p dated February 29, 2016, by merging two capital universities – the State Economics and Technology University of Transport and the Kyiv State Maritime Academy named after Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sagaidachny. Each institution has a similar, but its own origin.
The history of these universities reflects the history of water and rail transport which always needed skilled employees for their construction, development, technical modification. Founded at the beginning of the 20th century, the earlier representatives of these universities even during the revolution and two world wars did not stop teaching experts for transport infrastructure of Ukraine. The roots of the universities history date back to 1898 when the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute began to graduate engineers in the railway field. It was the first personnel supplier for rail transport in Kyiv at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The first railway engineers graduated from the university in 1903 (twelve with the degree in Railways and one in Bridges). In addition, in September 1909, the railway department of the Kyiv Higher Commercial Courses with Technical Sciences and “Economics of Railways” was opened, and in June 1912 it was granted the status of a higher educational institution and renamed the Kyiv Commercial University.
Interesting and symptomatic is the fact that since 1922, there was a faculty of traffic engineering in the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute which trained experts for land and water transport, and the Institute of Traffic taught experts both for railways and waterways.
In 1929, the People’s Commissariat of Education of Ukraine established the Institute of Railway Engineers in Kyiv which consisted of five faculties. A year later, the Institute was restructured and finally, according to the Resolution of the People’s Commissariat of the USSR № 19/672 dated July 12, 1930, 5 separate higher educational institutions were found:
- Kyiv Railway Institute consisting of 2 faculties,
- Dnipropetrovsk Railway Institute consisting of 3 faculties,
- Kyiv Institute of River Transport consisting of 3 faculties,
- Odessa Institute of Maritime Transport with 2 faculties,
- Kharkiv Road Institute consisting of 4 faculties.
During the mass repressions of the 1930s the Kyiv Railway Institute was among the significant number of higher education institutions that ceased to exist. Thus, in 1934, the Kyiv Institute of Transport Engineers merged with the Kharkiv Institute of Railway Engineers. In fact, the Kyiv Institute of Transport Engineers became a part of the Kharkiv Institute of Railway Engineers. In 1951, the Training and Consulting Centre of the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Railway Engineers was established. And only on July 14, 1966 a branch of the Kharkiv State Academy of Railway Transport in Kyiv was found. And in 1968 the specialty “Economy and the organisation of railway transport” was resumed in the Kyiv branch of the Kharkiv Institute of Railway Engineers.
The final stage of the University of Railway Transport foundation in Kyiv was during the years of Ukraine’s independence. The Kyiv branch of the Kharkiv State Academy of Railway Transport in 1995 first became the Kyiv Institute of Railway Transport, and in 2001 received the status of an independent university. Since 2007 till 2016 it was called the State Economics and Technology University of Transport (SETUT).
Universities of the water transport started their way in 1912 – since the Shipping Union sponsored foundation of the Kyiv River College of the first category of the Ministry of Traffic of the Russian Empire. The college started with a small library, three models of river ships, a model of a steam engine and four dozen desks. In the post-war period in Kyiv, the faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Water Transport was set up to train highly-qualified professionals of water transport. It later became the Institute of Water Transport of the Odessa Maritime Academy. The process of foundation of the University of Water Transport was completed after Ukraine got independence – in 1998 an independent higher educational institution – the Kyiv State Academy of Water Transport (KSAWT) was founded uniting the Kyiv River College, the Institute of Water Transport and Shipbuilding Technical College. In 2003, it was named after the famous Ukrainian hetman, naval commander Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachnyi.
For more than a hundred years in difficult conditions, the universities were collecting power to create modern State University of Infrastructure and Technologies (SUIT). The University has been collecting facilities and resources, employing teaching staff, accumulating experience of educational work.
Now the University consists of three institutes, which administer six faculties (one more faculty is located in the city of Izmail, Odessa region), two colleges (one in Kyiv and one in the city of Kiliia, Odessa region), Educational and Research Simulator-Based Centre for Training, Retraining and Professional Development of Water Transport Specialists, Educational and Research Centre of Postgraduate Education and Centre of Pre-University Training. Now, facilities, resources and infrastructure of the University allow providing educational process and research, and also solving social problems: offer accommodation for foreign students, health care, improve sport skills. For many years, the University basketball, swimming and athletics teams have won medal places at the championships of Kyiv and between universities. The University offers facilities to keep fit and master game skills – gym, fitness centre and Spartak Stadium. Students can show and master their creativity in amateur associations of the Centre for Culture and Arts, the National Theatre Studio “Raido” in particular.
The university has created a centre for pre-university study of entrants, it provides the second higher education, postgraduate and doctoral studies, specialised academic councils for thesis defence.
