North-western State Medical University named after I.I.Mechnikov was formed on October the 12-th, 2011, as a result of the merger of two oldest educational medical institutions in Russia – Saint-Petersburg Medical Academy of Postgraduate Studies and Saint-Petersburg State Medical Academy n. a. I.I. Mechnikov.

The founder of Mechnikov University is the Ministry of Public Health of the Russian Federation.

The activity of the University is based on cooperation and coordination of educational, clinical, and scientific activity. It makes it possible to prepare competent specialists, who possess up-to-date knowledge and can use it in practice.

4,200 students (~3000 students on budgetary education form and ~1200 on fee-based educational form) are studying at the University, among them are 500 students from foreign countries.

Besides that, at the University are over 670 interns about 1500 clinical residents, and 460 Ph.D. candidates who do their postgraduate work. Up to 35,000 specialists undergo their short- and long-term postdoctoral training annually.

Diagnostic and clinical work at Mechnikov University is managed in 6 own clinics, with a capacity is 1645 beds and includes 25 clinical specializations. Clinical subdivisions of the University provide high-skilled medical help to 40000 patients at hospitals and about 300000 patients yearly.

The research work at Mechnikov University is conducted per recent scientific development directions of biomedical sciences. Considerable attention is paid to studies in the field of health protection and sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population. The long-term strategy is focused on the effective transfer of fundamental and applied scientific action results and on building a supportive scientific-educational environment, which will make it possible to prepare specialists of the highest qualifications.