Expert Discussion on the Latest Developments by Russian Universities in a European Context
(28.06.11) On 28 June, the DFG’s Moscow office took part in a conference entitled “Leading Russian universities within the context of European tendencies of high school development”. The event was organised for high-ranking representatives of European universities and scientific organisations by the New Eurasia Foundation, which is based in Moscow. The Russian participants included rectors and prorectors from the new Federal and National Research Universities of Archangelsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Moscow, Rostov, Tomsk, St Petersburg and Vladivostok.
Igor Protsenko, Director of the Department of International Integration at the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Education and Science, opened the round-table discussion with a presentation on the challenges faced by Russian universities in the Post-Bologna Phase. This was followed by several presentations, including those by Viktor A. Koksharov (Association of Leading Russian Universities) and Sijbolt Noorda (Association of Universities in the Netherlands). As part of the conference, Jo Ritzen, the former Dutch Minister of Education, Culture, and Sciences, showcased his work "A Chance for European Universities". Jörn Achterberg, as a representative of the German Research Foundation in Russia, described the main features of the Excellence Initiative in Germany and provided an overview of the initial results of the second call for papers, which took place in March of this year. Finally, Tobias Stüdemann, a representative of the Free University of Berlin in Moscow, gave an exemplary presentation on how strategies for the future are being implemented at one of the elite German universities involved in the Excellence Initiative.
Prospects for Russian and European university cooperation – at both scientific and institutional level – were discussed with representatives from several different EU Embassies and the Moscow EU delegation. The DFG actively supports the integration of Russia into the European Research Area through its funding programmes and the implementation of measures to promote cooperation.
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