The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) was founded by presidential order on September 20, 2010. This foundation involved the merger of two previously existing academies: The Academy of National Economy (ANE), which was established in 1977, and the Russian Academy of Public Administration (RAPA), established in 1991. The merger also brought together 12 other state educational institutions. Each of the merged academies had already earned reputations as leaders in training Russia’s political elite.
From the moment of its creation in 1977, ANE prided itself as the breeding grounds for future ministers. With the fall of the Soviet Union, ANE changed its strategic model from training members of the ‘Nomenclatura’ to providing high-quality business education for a new generation of leaders by becoming an institute of higher education that offers wide array of academic opportunities in the field of management. Likewise, RAPA has traditionally