Oleg Kharkhordin graduated from the Economics Department of Leningrad University, and then studied in the postgraduate program of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in the doctoral program of the University California, Berkeley (PhD, political science, 1996).

Member of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies (1996-1998), Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale (spring 2002), in the Department of Government at Harvard (2002-2003) and at Sciences Po, Paris (2005, 2006, 2008). While being Chair of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of EUSP (1998-2001), he started IMARS (International MA in Russian Studies), a novel program for graduate students from Western Europe and North America. He has served as Vice-Rector for Development since 2005, and has been extensively involved in creating the EUSP Endowment Fund, the first university endowment in St. Petersburg and the second one in Russia. He also founded and ran the interdepartmental research center “Res Publica”