DFG Steps Up Cooperation with Lomonosov Moscow State University
(31.10.18) In mid-October, during the All Russian Science Festival, DFG President Professor Dr. Peter Strohschneider travelled to Moscow to expand the DFG’s cooperation with Russia’s most prominent higher education institution, Lomonosov University. The DFG delegation also visited Russian partner organisations and other universities and research institutions in Moscow.
The main purpose of the trip was to expand the DFG’s partnership with Moscow State University (MSU). Also known as Lomonosov University, it is indisputably the most important and prestigious university in Russia, and enjoys an elevated status in the Russian university system and with respect to funding. The university was founded in 1755 by decree of Empress Elizabeth at the suggestion of polymath and writer Mikhail Lomonosov. With some 47,000 students, including approximately 4,000 international students, a strong research profile and an international outlook, it is of special interest to the German research system – the large number of DFG grants and partnerships with German universities being just one indicator of this.
During the opening of the All Russian Science Festival, in front of around one thousand guests in the university’s Fundamental Library and in the presence of science minister Mikhail Kotjukov, education minister Olga Vasilieva and Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Khokhlov, Peter Strohschneider and long-serving rector of MSU Viktor Sadovnichiy signed a letter of intent on future cooperation. The aim is to open up new possibilities for collaboration and the co-financing of research projects for German researchers.
The DFG has previously engaged in some very successful collaboration with MSU. On three occasions the DFG and MSU have jointly organised lectures by Leibniz Prize recipients, most recently at the Faculty of Physics in 2017, when the lecture was delivered by DFG Vice President Professor Dr. Wolfgang Ertmer on quantum optics. Researchers at MSU are also very successful in obtaining third-party funding in open calls issued by the DFG together with RFBR and RSF. A large number of DFG-funded International Research Training Groups have also been funded.
The visit began with a meeting with the German ambassador in Moscow, Rüdiger Freiherr von Fritsch, which gave the DFG delegation the chance to meet senior representatives of the newly established Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the heads of RFBR and RSF, both partner organisations of the DFG, to discuss research policy developments in Germany and Russia. German organisations like the German Historical Institute (DHI Moscow), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the German House for Research and Innovation (DWIH) and the Helmholtz Association were also invited to the ambassador’s residence.
The DFG delegation also paid a visit to the Higher School of Economics (HSE) and the German Historical Institute in Moscow. At the Russian Academy of Sciences, the German delegates met with Vice Presidents Yuri Balega and Nikolai Makarov. This provided another opportunity to discuss ways of enhancing international cooperation. The DFG has a long tradition of association with the Academy: the two organisations have been working together since 1970 and the partnership will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2020.
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