ITMO University is a state-supported university in Saint Petersburg and is one of Russia's National Research Universities. ITMO University is one of 15 Russian universities that were selected to participate in Russian Academic Excellence Project 5-100 by the government of the Russian Federation to improve their international standing among the world's research and educational centers.

Project 5-100 was a special government run program to develop major Russian universities. The program was launched by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science in 2013. It was aimed at improving the prestige of Russian higher education and bring at least five universities from among the project participants into the 100 best universities in the world according to the three most authoritative world rankings: Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education (THE), and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) by 2020. However, this goal was never achieved.