Research activities at the University are funded both by the Governmental budget allocated to conduct fundamental research and solve the most important problems of science and engineering in the fields that the University specializes, and by departmental and interuniversity science-and-technology programs and grants received. Every year, MIIGAiK participates in carrying out about 60 research projects to Governmental order or under particular Agreements with Russian or foreign partners.

The scientists of MIIGAiK participate successfully in realization of several international projects aimed at studying the Earth, its natural resources and predicting their dynamic changes.

A top priority in research performed by the scientists of MIIGAiK is given to the development of modern technologies in the following fields:
– Development of information systems (GIS/LIS) for rural and urban cadastre;
– Automation of interpretation, process and use of remote-sensing data;
– Development of methods and systems for remote sensing of the Earth and environment, their mapping and monitoring;
– Computer-aided cartography and large-scale digital mapping;
– Development of prospective technologies in geodesy, cadastre and monitoring of lands on the basis of satellite, optical-andelectronic and geoinformation systems;
– Design of precise optical and optoelectronic instruments.

MIIGAiK is also a center of writing manuals and training books for students of topographic and geodetic specialties.
GEODESY AND AEROPHOTOSURVEYING, a scientific journal well-known by specialists, is edited and printed in MIIGAiK, almost 120 articles being published there every year.

Postgraduate courses and courses for doing doctoral dissertations and Master`s degree theses are run in the University for training research workers.

As the University has the status of the leading higher educational institution in training specialists in geodesy and cartography in this country, MIIGAiK has founded a teaching-and-methodological council of higher educational establishments of the Russian Federation in these fields. The Council is responsible for co-ordination of activities of all interested institutions and enterprises of the country, the scientific and pedagogical public, in assuring the quality and development of higher vocational training, for predicting promising directions of training specialists in the field of geodesy, photogrammetry, remote sensing, application of information and computer technologies to teaching processes.