Founded in 1997 as a creation of modern, independent, post-Soviet Ukraine, the National University Odessa Law Academy can trace its lineage back a further 150 years, to the creation of the law faculty of Richelieu Lyceum, Odessa’s first higher education institution. It has subsequently transformed into a university, first as Novorossiysk in 1865, then Odessa. In 2000, it acquired National University status, taking its present name in 2012.
The city of Odessa is a cosmopolitan port city of around one million people. It is located on the Black Sea with a "unique history and an imitable soul" and sights including the steps immortalised in the film "Battleship Potemkin".
The university has been connected to Ukraine’s high politics since 1998 by having Sergey Kivalov, a major political figure as a rector throughout. Alumni include Petro Poroshenko, president from 2014 to 2019, who completed a PhD at the institution.
Described by Kivalov as "a symbol of tradition, standard of today and prospect for the future" it offers a wide range of legal disciplines and training, and also has faculties of journalism, political science, information technology and cyber security and psychology. Courses are offered in Ukrainian, Russian and English. It has several satellite campuses in southern Ukraine.
Since 2010 it has hosted the Southern Regional Centre of Ukraine’s National Academy of Science. In 2017 the university had six "fundamental research" projects, funded from state budgets and is thought to account for around one-third of the national total of academic law research.
Every year, groups of 30 to 35 students take special courses in German, European Union and American Law.
