Fundraising Workshop on Cooperation with German Funding Organisations at SPbPU in St. Petersburg
Opening of the seminar at the Polytechnic University (left to right): S. Shevereva (RFBR), N. Dobrovolskaya, G. Melnikova (DFG), I. Protsenko, Y. Simachev (RSF), D. Arseniev, V. Khizhnyak (SPbPU), G. Berghorn (DAAD), I. Suleimanov (AvH fellow), Y. Eremenko (HGF)
(27.10.15) In mid-October, St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) invited Russian and German funding and research organisations to attend a bilateral fundraising workshop. The aim of the one-day seminar, in which other members of DWIH Moscow also participated on the initiative of the DFG along with the DAAD and the Helmholtz Association, was to consult on joint calls with Russian funding organisations such as the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR).
The idea for the workshop came about in April when a DFG delegation led by Senator Johannes Janicka (Technical University of Darmstadt) visited the Polytechnic University during the 12th German Week in St. Petersburg to attend the opening of an exhibition, lectures and roundtable discussions. The aim was to provide researchers with a forum in which to discuss unresolved issues relating to DFG calls with its Russian partner organisations. As well as presenting actual funding programmes, the representatives of the German and Russian organisations wanted to hold an initial consultation on the submission of proposals.
At the opening of the workshop the Vice-Rector for International Relations, Dmitry Arseniev, profiled the university's international activities and reported on the current expansion of contacts in education and research. He made special reference to the long history of cooperation and partnership with many universities in Germany. This made the Polytechnic University the ideal platform for the first such German-Russian seminar, during which representatives of the DFG, the Russian Science Foundation and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research jointly presented their funding programmes for the first time.
As well as the 80 Russian researchers from St. Petersburg who came to SPbPU, cooperation partners from German institutions such as the Technical University of Munich and the Brandenburg University of Technology were able to join in by live video link. With over 30 000 students, SPbPU is one of the largest and most renowned universities in Russia. Founded in 1899 as a Polytechnical Institute, it was recently given the name of Peter the Great and in 2010 was awarded the status of a National Research University, making it part of a select circle of leading universities of the Russian Federation.