Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, abbreviated as SPbPU, is a public technical university located in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The university houses one of the country's most advanced research labs in hydro–aerodynamics. The university's alumni include Nobel Prize winners, such as Pyotr Kapitsa and Zhores Alferov, physicists and atomic weapon designers such as Yulii Khariton, Nikolay Dukhov, Abram Ioffe, Aleksandr Leipunskii, and Yakov Zeldovich, aircraft designers and aerospace engineers, such as Yulii Khariton, Oleg Antonov, Nikolai Polikarpov, and Georgy Beriev, and chess grandmasters, such as David Bronstein. The university offers academic programs at the Bachelor, Master's, and Doctorate degree levels. SPbSPU consists of structural units called Institutes divided into three categories: Engineering Institutes, Physical Institutes, and Economics and Humanities Institutes. In 2022, the university was ranked #301 in the world in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, #393 in QS World University Rankings, #679 in Best Global Universities Rankings by U.S. News & World Report, and #1,005 by Center for World University Rankings.

Saint Petersburg Polytechnic Institute was founded in 1899 as an engineering school in Russia. The main person promoting the creation of this university was the Finance Minister Count Sergei Witte. Witte viewed establishing an engineering school loosely modeled by the French École Polytechnique as an important step towards the industrialization of Russia.^{[citation needed]}

The first director of the institute became Prince Andrey Gagarin. Unlike the French École Polytechnique, the Saint Petersburg Polytechnic Institute was always considered to be a civilian establishment. In tsarist Russia it was subordinated to the Ministry of Finance; its students and faculty wore the uniform of the ministry.^{[citation needed]}

The main campus was built on the rural lands beyond the dacha settlement Lesnoye. The location was intended to provide some separation between the campus and the capital city of Saint Petersburg. The institute was opened to students on October 1, 1902. Originally there were four departments: Economics, Shipbuilding, Electro-mechanics and Metallurgy.^{[citation needed]}

Its work was interrupted by the Russian Revolution of 1905. One student, M. Savinkov, was killed during the Bloody Sunday events of January 22 [O.S. January 9] 1905. The reaction of the student body was so strong that classes only resumed in September 1906, almost two years later. Among the polytechnic students who participated in the Revolutionary events were the future Bolshevik leader Mikhail Frunze and the future writer Yevgeny Zamyatin. Among the deputies of the First Duma were four Polytechnic Institute's faculties: N.A. Gredeskul (Н.А. Гредескул), N.I. Kareev (Н.И. Кареев), A.S. Lomshakov (А.С. Ломшаков) and L.N. Yasnopolsky (Л.Н. Яснопольский). In 1910 the institute was named Peter the Great Polytechnic Institute after Peter I of Russia. In 1914 the number of students reached 6,000.^{[citation needed]}

With the onset of World War I many students found themselves in the Army and soon the number of students decreased to 3,000. Some students, like future Soviet military commander Leonid Govorov studied at the institute for one month. Part of the institute's buildings were transferred into the Maria Fyodorovna Hospital. Despite the war the institute did not stop its work.^{[citation needed]}

In 1916 Abram Ioffe opened his Physics Seminar at the Polytechnic Institute. The seminar prepared three Nobel Prize-winners and many other prominent Russian physicists. Eventually, this seminar became the core of the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute.^{[citation needed]}

On June 5, 1918 the institute was renamed to First Polytechnic Institute (with the Second Polytechnic Institute being the former Women's Polytechnic Institute). In November 1918 Sovnarkom abolished all forms of scientific decrees, licenses and certifications. There remained only two positions for the faculty: Professor (that required three years of engineering experience) and instructor (with no formal requirements at all). Departments were renamed Faculties (факультеты), and the director became rector. A Soviet (Council) of 11 professors and 15 students was given the main authority in the Institute. One of these 15 students in the Soviet was Pyotr Kapitsa, a future Nobel-Prize winner in physics. The Faculty of Physics and Mechanics, headed at that time by Abram Ioffe, focused on atomic and the solid state physics.^{[citation needed]}