The Faculty of Economics of the Belarusian State University trains Bachelors of Science in the following fields:

• Economics (specialization — "analytical economics", the qualification is an economist-analyst)
• Economic theory (specialization — "economic policy", the qualification is an economic theorist/ a teacher of economic sciences)
• Finance and credit (specialization —"banking", the qualification is an economist-financier)
• Management: (specialization — "international management", "innovation management", the qualification is an economist-manager)

Dean — Prof. Dr. Mikhail Kovalev, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Republic of Belarus.

Departments

There are five departments at the faculty:

Department of Economic theory

The department does research studies in institutional changes in a transitional economy, the processes of globalization and regionalization, the development of entrepreneurship and small-scale business in Belarus and also in system transformation under transitional conditions. Head – Prof. Vladimir Klyunia.

Department of Theoretical and Institutional Economics

The department does research studies in modern economic science, modern political economy, modern economic policy and history of economic science in Belarus. The head of the department is Prof. Petr Lemeshenko, who is one of the top institutional economics experts, is also responsible for the faculty’s cooperation with Moscow State University.

Department of Banking and Financial Economics

The department’s line of research is corporate finance management in transitional economy and financial engineering. The head of the department is a famous Belarusian economist Prof. Vladimir Tarasov, who was a deputy director of the Institute of Economics of the National Academy of Sciences.

Department of Management

The main area of study is electronic commerce and Internet-marketing. The head of the department is Prof. Boris Panshin.

Department of Informational and Mathematical Economics

The department studies optimal decision-making in economy, numerical methods in economics and the expert systems of decision-making, classification and rating. Head – Prof. Mikhail Kovalev.

History

The Belarusian State University was founded on October 30th, 1921 including the faculty of Social Sciences with a Department of Economics. The first student to receive an official BSU diploma was B. Karakulko, who was a graduate of the Department of Economics of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Four years later, after the first graduation of 34 economists, two other faculties were formed on this basis. One of these two was the faculty of National Economy, and by 1929 it consisted of the Department of Co-operation, the Department of Planned-economic Statistics, the Department of Finances and the Department of Industrial Management. In 1931 there were more than 700 students studying at the faculty. On May 20th , 1933 The Institute of National Economy was established (nowadays - Belarusian state economic university) and many of the instructors of the BSU started working there. Despite the fact it lost much of its scientific and educational potential, the Department of Economics continued its development. In 1938 Professor A. Lurie became the Head of a reorganized Department of Political Economy, which had been training professional political economists at the faculty of Law until 1972 and then at the faculty of History. In 1989, the Department of Political Economy for Arts Subjects made up a new Faculty of Philosophy and Economics and was renamed into the Department of Economics. Also in 1991 the Department of Management was founded. Going under different names, the Department of Political Economy trained 869 economists between 1966 and 1999, and many of them were foreigners from Europe, CIS, Asian and Latin American countries. On March 1st,1999 the Scholar Council made a decision to unite several departments into The Faculty of Economics and grant independent educational unit status to it.

Studies

Entrance requirements

Three certificates of centralized testing are required:

• Russian or Belarusian language
• Mathematics
• Foreign language

Moreover, the final mark includes the average mark of the school-leaving certificate.

Studies

Besides the internal education, it is possible to get an instruction by correspondence for those who want to get a second higher education or to combine work and studies.

The Faculty of Economics provides basic courses in Economics (Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, International Economics, Agricultural Economics, and Regional Economics), Finance, Accounting and Audit, Statistics, Mathematics and Information Technologies for all first-year and second-year students irrespective of their major field of study. Specialized courses are available for third-year and fourth-year students within the relevant fields of study. In addition, the faculty provides courses in English since it is a basic language in economic relations. Courses in German are also available.

The BSU was the first Belarusian university to establish the system of distance learning for its students. The network educating platform eUniversity gives an opportunity to find necessary information about the courses, do tests and tasks, and consult with an instructor.

Every year the Faculty publishes no less than 10 textbooks. Many of them can be found in the e-library, which is available at the official website.

The academic curriculum includes field studies in Statistics, Finance, Microeconomics and Macroeconomics both at government authorities and private companies. These studies allow students to establish contacts and determine prospective jobs that coincide with their needs. Besides, a special employment agency was founded in the BSU with the purpose of helping the graduates to find an interesting and highly paid job.

Graduate and post-graduate programs

After four years of studies students receive a bachelor degree. The Belarusian State University was among the first institutions of higher education in Belarus where the graduate programs in International Management and Finance and Credit were launched. Those who have a bachelor degree or relevant work experience of at least 2 years are invited to apply for these programs by the Faculty.

Post-graduate programs in Economic Theory, National Economy Management and Mathematical and Numerical Methods in Economics are also available at the Faculty of Economics. The studies last for 3 years and are completed after defending a thesis.

International cooperation

The Faculty of Economics of the BSU takes part in many students’ exchange programs in association with foreign universities (University of applied sciences of Saxony (Germany); Magdeburg University (Germany); FONTYS university, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Moldes university in Norway), and in some joint research projects.

Joint projects with foreign universities:

• «German investments in Belarus» (University of applied sciences of Saxony)
• «Belarus – the Netherlands: external economic cooperation» (FONTYS university in Eindhoven). Owing to this project a new business plan was prepared to increase sales in The Netherlands.
• "Optimal decision-making in the discrete optimization method" (Magdeburg University). The financial models of optimization and logistic models were investigated.
• "Scheduling and assignment models under uncertainty and real-time constraints with application in manufacturing, communication, computer aided design and transportation". Partners: Osnabrück University (Germany); Troyes University (France), Research institute on computer science and automatics’ laboratory in Metz, France; Institute of Mathematics of The Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Science (Novosibirsk and Omsk); Institute of Mathematics of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus; research centre of machine mechanics of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
• Electronic commerce project with Trento University (Italy).

The Faculty of Economics develops the cooperation with The Faculties of Economics of Moscow State University, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Approximately, there are one hundred foreign students both from CIS countries, and from Vietnam, Germany, Greece, Jordan, Cyprus, China, Lebanon, Syria.

Links

• The official website of the Belarusian State University
• The official website of the Faculty of Economics
• eUniversity
• The official website of Republican Institute for Knowledge Control