The main goals of the department are: the educational process, scientific and educational work, training of scientific and pedagogical personnel. Employees and teachers of the department have always actively helped design and production organizations to solve urgent problems of construction in the country, participated in the construction of the largest structures, the creation of new cities, the development of the regions of the Far North, Eastern and Western Siberia, the Far East. Leading scientists of the department, who are world famous, made a significant contribution to the development of domestic foundation engineering, soil mechanics, trained thousands of qualified civil engineers..

Today, the Department of Geotechnics is one of the few in Russia that trains engineers in the field of geotechnical construction (all levels of training: bachelor's, master;s, specialist's, PhD degrees).

The department constantly cooperates in scientific and technical fields with leading geotechnical organizations of St Petersburg, Russia and other countries.

The department has trained more than 180 PhD holders and 14 doctors of engineering sciences. At different times, seven honored workers of science and technology of the RSFSR and the Russian Federation worked at the department.