The botanical garden will develop in four directions

The ISU Botanical Garden has identified four key areas of development, educational, research, sociocultural, and career guidance. The university also plans the garden's participation in creating an ecological technopark and the development of new programs, a laboratory base, tours, and a retraining center for the public. Separately, the article discusses staffing changes, the fate of the petting zoo, and an audit of the garden's economic activity, after which measures may be taken to eliminate violations.

The ISU Botanical Garden will develop along four directions. The university presented the policy for the garden’s further development. It is also known that the Botanical Garden will take part in the creation of an ecological technopark together with the city and regional authorities. This was reported by the university’s press service.
As the dean of the ISU Faculty of Biology and Soil Science, Arkady Matveev, said, the garden will engage in educational, research, socio-cultural, and career guidance activities.
As part of the garden’s educational activities, it is planned to develop innovative programs for network-based learning, to expand the educational and laboratory base for teaching students and conducting laboratory practical classes. It is also expected that joint programs will be developed for interdisciplinary profiles and courses.
Research activities include three components: maintaining and developing the existing collection; expanding the existing laboratory and biotechnological base for the development of tissue cultures, growing virus-free plant material, and obtaining dietary supplements from plants and mushrooms; as well as introduction work.
As socio-cultural activities, they intend to develop a petting zoo and excursion activities, and to create a retraining center with courses for the public in landscape design, gardening, floriculture, and ethnobotany.
As part of career guidance activities, it is planned to create an educational center to prepare schoolchildren for olympiads, conduct courses for specialized classes, and carry out phytotherapy with children with deviant behavior.
At the ISU Botanical Garden, after it becomes part of the Faculty of Biology and Soil Science, it is planned to create the positions of head of the Botanical Garden, scientific director, and lead biologist. The former director of the garden, Viktor Kuzevanov, has been proposed for the position of scientific director. University management has already received Viktor’s preliminary consent. The position of scientific director of the Botanical Garden will be funded from the university’s off-budget resources. The fate of the petting zoo has also been decided. All of its structures will be transferred to the ownership of the Russian Federation and placed on the university’s balance sheet.
As university rector Alexander Arguchintsev wrote on his blog, a commission of Irkutsk State University is currently checking the economic and financial activities of the Botanical Garden. Based on the results of the inspection, measures will be taken to eliminate violations in the use of the land and property complex, and decisions will also be made regarding the personal responsibility of the garden’s current management.