DFG attends anniversary of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN)
Celebration of the 55th anniversary of the founding of the RUDN
(27.02.15) The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) was 55 years old at the beginning of February. At the invitation of Vladimir Filippov, the former Russian Minister for Education and now the Rector of the University, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) took part in a conference on the internationalisation of universities. The official celebration in the Grand Kremlin Palace on 7 February was attended by around 6,000 academics, students and alumni and by politicians and diplomats from over 150 countries.
On the day preceding the celebration, in front of an audience of several hundred invited guests, the director of the DFG's Office in Russia, Dr. Jörn Achterberg, offered congratulations on behalf of the DFG to one of the best-known Russian universities and also talked about strategies for internationalisation and DFG funding programmes, such as the German Excellence Initiatives. Leading universities and research institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences also contributed to the discussion.
The Medical Faculty at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia is very active in research and its Mathematical School is one of the best in Russia. It maintains very strong links in this area to the universities in Berlin and to the University of Heidelberg. For example, Pavel Gurevich from the Free University of Berlin, who won the 2014 von Kaven Award for early career researchers in mathematics from the DFG, was awarded the title of "Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences" (the equivalent of a German habilitation) at the RUDN.
The RUDN is deemed in many respects to have been one of the five best universities of the last decade in Russia. Over the last five years, its performance in terms of publication output has even put it at third place after the State Universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg. A "reform university", until the end of the Soviet Union it was called the "Patrice Lumumba" University and enrolled fellowship students from Asia, Africa and Latin America in order to support the third world. It is currently attended by 28,000 students from 152 countries representing 450 peoples and nationalities. The approximately 100,000 graduates from the university are employed in 170 different countries.
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