As of today, Armenia does not have a single university that has a European standard certificate and a license for university activities. This is a fundamental fact. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this at a meeting of the Council on Economic Policy in the Armenian resort town of Dilijan on March 16.
In this regard, according to Pashinyan, the Academic Town "is an extremely important and strategic project for us". "And, of course, we must expand the dialogue with the university system, the scientific system, applicants, and society, because this is a very important part of the vision of the future of our country," said Pashinyan, according to the press service of the Armenian government.
Ultimately, noted Nikol Pashinyan, there should not be a single university outside the Academic Town. "All universities in the republic, whether Armenian or foreign, private or state, should operate only in the Academic Town," he explained.
Armenian universities do not meet not only European, but also licensing standards provided by Armenian legislation, complained the head of the Armenian government.
"And that's exactly where the idea of the Academic Town came from... We cannot remodel these buildings because in the modern world it is obvious that physical infrastructure must correspond to substantive infrastructure, because one without the other creates a gap," said Nikol Pashinyan, noting that due to low-quality universities, the country finds itself in the center of international scandals.
Earlier, the Government of Armenia approved the idea of creating an Academic Town, which is intended to be developed as a center of education and science to stimulate innovation and development. The town will unite 16 educational institutions - 8 state and the same number of private or international ones. It will be organized into 4 clusters: arts, education, technology, and defense. It will be located not far from Yerevan and will be connected to it by a railway. Inside the town, transportation is planned to be by bicycles and electric transport. It is planned that about 44,000 people will live and work here.
One of the key goals of creating the Academic Town is to ensure that at least four Armenian universities enter the global top 500.
In 2018, funding for scientific research amounted to 14.3 billion drams (about $35 million), and in 2024 - already 40.2 billion drams (about $100 million), which is almost three times more. Along with this, the salaries of scientific workers have also increased.
