(10.03.16) Engineering sciences research funded by both the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) began in March. Over the next six years, the aim of this cooperation between three German and four Russian research groups will be to explore new fields in hybrid magnetic materials. Alongside Professor Stefan Odenbach from the Technical University of Dresden, the spokesperson for the initiative, a total of 25 researchers from Ilmenau, Yekaterinburg, Moscow and Perm will be involved in the collaboration.

The aim of the bilateral project is to produce magnetically controlled elastic materials and to tailor them for use in sensory applications. The German team is drawing upon its expertise in mechanical and magnetic characterisation, microstructural analysis and the technical application of these innovative materials. Their Russian partners will contribute their knowledge of the theory of hybrid magnetic materials. They have been preparing for the project for a number of years now and their work is ultimately based on decades of collaboration between the working groups.

As part of Russia’s Germany Year in 2013, the DFG and its Russian partner organisation RFBR hosted a one-day workshop at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences (RAN). The chosen theme was ‘Prospects of German-Russian Scientific Cooperation in Clusters of Excellence (EXC) and Collaborative Research Centres (CRC)’, and 120 researchers and academic administrators from both countries discussed opportunities for expanding joint research activities. Prof. Odenbach, Chair of Magnetofluiddynamics, Measurement and Automation Technology at the Technical University of Dresden, presented ongoing projects and new ideas for joint research in Moscow.

Dr. Michael Lentze, Programme Director of the DFG Head Office in Bonn, and Dr. Jörn Achterberg, Director of the DFG Office Russia/CIS in Moscow, emphasised both the relevance of the project’s topic and its importance in developing the collaboration between the DFG and RFBR institutions. This is the first time that the two partner organisations have managed to jointly finance a package proposal of this size. This type of pilot project is important because it opens up opportunities for further bilateral collaborations that extend beyond the DFG’s standard procedure. Ultimately Russia has a growing interest in joint funding within the DFG’s framework of larger coordinated programmes.