Faculty of Navigation and Radio Communication at Admiral Makarov University of Maritime and Inland Shipping was established in the result of merging of Navigational and Radio Engineering Faculties in December, 2012.  

Training of navigators and radio engineers of merchant marine fleet has great and glorious history.

The launching date for the training of navigators is the 7^th (19) of May, 1876. On this date St. Petersburg River Yacht Club received the permission to open Nautical classes of the second rate. The Marine Classes of the River Club had two majors:  Coastal Voyage Navigators and Ocean Voyage Navigators.

The education was free of charge and took 6 months period from the 15^th of October till the 6^th of April. The curriculum incorporated up to 720 training hours. Along with the students, the classes were attended by the applicants of the coming year, however it required a special permission from the Committee.   The graduates who had not passed through the graduation exams successfully and had to stay in the port over winter period were also allowed to attend the classes again for further re-examination.  

In July 25, 1945, by the official order of the authorities, Hydrographical Institution and Methodological School was reorganized to enhance the quality of maritime education and training for the officers of the Arctic Marine Fleet and polar stations. The reorganization resulted in the establishing of Higher Arctic Maritime Academy (HAMA) which provided MET for navigators as well as hidrography and hydrology engineers. Thus one more faculty for the training of marine navigators was launched, however this training was focused on the Northern Route navigation.  The faculty annually accepted 25 students. Through the whole period of HAMA existence it had been headed by Associate Professor, glorious Polar Captain N.M. Nikolayev. HAMA was located in the building of the former Hydrographical Institution (Zanevskiy Prospect, building №5). 

In December 1990, in accordance with the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1350 Leningrad higher Engineering Marine School named after Admiral S.O. Makarov was reorganized and got the name of “Admiral Makarov State Maritime Academy”. Its Navigational Faculty was training Navigational Engineers on the specialization “Navigation of Sea Routes”. Since 1999 upgrading training of navigation officers has been provided by the professors of the faculty.  The graduates of the faculty get their Graduation Diplomas and Certificates in full compliance with the international requirements and standards of today so the right after the graduation they can be employed for the position of  Officer in Charge of Navigational Watch on board marine ships at any shipping company of the world.  Over 5 000 Navigational Engineers have graduated from the faculty.  

 Radio Engineering faculty (REF) was launched in 1944 for the training of ship radio engineers with higher education for merchant marine. The first graduation from the faculty was in 1949. Among the first graduates of the faculty there were former participants of World War II  and other prominent  persons of that time.  Since 1948 and up to 1975 the faculty  was the only one in USSR providing higher education for ship radio engineers of Merchant Marine (in 1975 a similar faculty was launches in Novorosiysk). A.M. Bayrashevskiy was the first Dean of the faculty followed by other persons at this position: Professor K.A. Semenov, Associate Professor A.M. Bayrashevskiy, Associate Professor T.N. Nevolin, Associate Professor G.E. Rumyancev,  Professor Ilyin. Since 1999 up to 2012 the faculty was headed by Professor M.B. Solodovnichenko.  Graduates of the Ship Radio Engineering Department have leading positions in various sectors of the industry and various departments of Marine Authorities of Russia. For the practical training of the ship radio engineers the professors of the faculty apply the facilities of Makarov Training Center (Simulators Center), regional  VTMS Center “Raskat”, “Russian Institution of Radio Navigation and Time” and other organizations. This cooperation enables the faculty to provide up-to- date training of the ship engineers. Great attention is paid to the studying of the sciences related to soft-ware, studying of English language, detailed studying of radio-electronic equipment  and technologies applied by modern Merchant Marine. 

Since April 2014 the faculty is headed by Associate Professor, Dr.-Ing., A.M.  Boyarinov.