On 29 June 2011, an official diploma award ceremony took place at the St Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation, Herzen University. The ceremony was attended by high-level Russian officials and international dignitaries including Alexander Gorelik, Director of the UN Information Centre (Moscow), Alexey Fedorov, Deputy Director of the Linguistic Support Department, Russian MFA, Brian Fox, Director of DG Interpretation, the European Commission, as well as Rector’s office headed by President Gennady Bordovski and Rector Valery Solomin, other official guests, media, graduates’ parents.

The first of its kind in Russia, the St Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation is training professional interpreters and translators for the needs of the Russian government and international organizations. As such, the School has been effectively implementing the “Skolkovo” principle of innovation as applied to humanitarian skills and knowledge through the creation of open educational partnerships which means that training is realized jointly by practicing interpreters of St Petersburg, the United Nations, the European Commission, the Russian MFA, Russian and European universities.

Soon after the ceremony, twelve out of sixteen graduates will be setting off to internship program in the UN linguistic services at the UNHQ and the UNOG, two have received appointments in the Language Support Department, the Russian MFA.