Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi or Betskoy was an educational reformer in the Russian Empire who served as Catherine II's advisor on education and President of the Imperial Academy of Arts for thirty years (1764–94). Perhaps the crowning achievement of his long career was the establishment of Russia's first unified system of public education.

The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789 by the Neva River. The academy promoted the neoclassical style and technique, and sent its promising students to European capitals for further study. Training at the academy was virtually required for artists to make successful careers.