The Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University has been operating in its current form and structures since Azerbaijani independence in 1991 and it has undergone significant changes since.
The university is located in Baku, the largest and capital city of Azerbaijan. It is the lowest lying national capital in the world and also the largest city in the world located below sea level.
The modern institution says that "we want our students to demonstrate critical thinking, logical thinking, creativity and to behave and live in a cultural way".
The university has faculties of geology and exploration, oil and gas, chemical technology, oil mechanics, power engineering, information technology and control and economics and management. Students can take courses in more than 50 fields within these faculties.
The university has its own sports complex with swimming pool, tennis courts and all-weather football pitch and students can take part in 12 different sports including football, tennis, basketball, boxing and wrestling.
Since 1998 it has offered an MBA in partnership with Georgia State University in the USA. In 2016 opened it UFAZ, the Azerbaijan-French university offering double diplomas in chemical engineering, computer science, geography, engineering and oil and civil engineering in partnership with the University of Strasbourg.
The university's alumni have dominated Azerbaijan’s post-independence politics. Geidar Aliev was president from 1993 to 2003 and Artur Rasidze Prime Minister for an all but continuous period of nearly 22 years, ending in 2018. Other notable alumni include Kerim Kerimov, a key figure in the Soviet space programme, cosmonaut Vitali Zolobov and Eduardo dos Santos, President of Angola from 1979 to 2017.
