Sumy State University

Sumy State University (Сумський державний університет; Sumskyi derzhavnyi universytet). An institution of higher learning in Sumy, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine. It was originally founded in 1948 as an educational and consulting post (NKP) at Sumy Machine Building Factory. Initially, NKP was subordinate to Moscow Correspondence Institute of Metalworking Industry (later, the All-Union Correspondence Machine Building Institute). In 1958 NKP was transferred under the jurisdiction of the newly created Ukrainian Correspondence Polytechnical Institute (UZPI) and in 1960 it was reorganized as the Sumy General Technical Faculty of UZPI. In 1966 it was further reorganized as the Sumy branch of Kharkiv Polytechnical Institute. In 1970 the branch added a general technical faculty in Konotop (previously subordinated to Kyiv Polytechnical Institute). During the 1980s the Sumy branch received a few new buildings that housed classrooms, dormitory, administration, and library, including the 14-story Main Building (1984), followed by the Central Building (1988). In 1990 the Sumy branch was transformed into Sumy Institute of Physics and Technology. In 1992 it also opened a program in medicine which has grown into one of the leading programs of its kind in Ukraine, attracting students from across Ukraine and from abroad. In 1993 the institute was once again reorganized, gained a state university status, and assumed its current name Sumy State University (SumDU), while further expanding its curriculum by incorporating the humanities and social sciences. It was among the first dozen institutes transformed into ‘classical’ universities in independent Ukraine. In 2005–15 a number of new, primarily economics- and business-related fields of study were added, including advertising and public relations, international economics, management, intellectual property, media communications, and others. SumDU has continued to excel in technical and technological specialties, particularly IT (the faculty of electronics and information technology), benefitting from close collaboration with the tech industry. A number of its graduates are employed in leading national and international companies, including Google. A major new addition to SumDU was the incorporation of the Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine (est. 1996) in 2015–6.

SumDU has its main campus in Sumy and two satellite campuses in Konotop and Shostka. It has three faculties (foreign philology and social communications; technical systems and energy-efficient technologies; and electronics and information technology) and five institutes (Konotop institute; Shostka institute; medical institute; educational and scholarly institute of business, economics, and management; and educational and scholarly institute of law). SumDU also operates several colleges and tekhnikums, among them Machine Building College; Ivan Kozhedub Chemical Engineering College in Shostka; Polytechnical College of Konotop Institute; Industrial and Pedagogical Tekhnikum in Konotop; and Shostka Professional Lyceum). SumDU also has several museums, among them the museum of historical and regional studies; the IT museum; the museum of banking and money; and the anatomy museum. The student enrollment in 2020 was 12,000, including 1,900 foreign students from more than 50 countries (most of them in the faculty of medicine). SumDU’s research library has over 3 million items, including one million volumes of books and 120,000 copies of periodicals (with more than 2,000 titles). SumDU has been consistently ranked among the best universities in Ukraine. For instance, in 2020 it was ranked third in the independent academic ranking Top 200 Ukraine, immediately after Kyiv Polytechnical Institute National Technical University of Ukraine and Kyiv National University. Since 2014 SumDU has been among a handful of Ukrainian universities to have appeared in the world’s most prestigious academic rankings. It was featured in Times Higher Education Ranking (in the group of 501–600) and QS World University Rankings (in the group of 701–750).

SumDU publishes a number of scholarly periodicals, including Zhurnal nano- i elektronnoї fizyky/Journal of Nano- and Electronic Physics (13 vols, 1994–); Marketynh і menedzhment innovatsiї (2010–); Journal of Engineering Sciences (7 vols, 2014–); Obraz (34 vols, 2000–); Sums'ka starovyna (57 vols, 1996–); Sums'kyi istoryko-arkhivnyi zhurnal (35 vols, 2005–); Filolohichni traktaty [formerly Visnyk Sums'koho Derzhavnoho Universytetu. Filolohichni nauky], published jointly with Kharkiv National University (12 vols, 2009–); Eastern Ukrainian Medical Journal [formerly Visnyk Sums'koho Derzhavnoho Universytetu. Medytsyna] (9 vols, 2007–); Pravovi horyzonty/Legal Horizons (37 vols, 2007–), and others.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sums'kyi derzhavnyi universytet: istoriia ta suchasnist' 3rd rev ed (Sumy 2018)
SumDU official website: http://www.sumdu.edu.ua

Serhiy Bilenky

[This article was written in 2021.]