Freie Universität Berlin and St. Petersburg State University have opened the first Center of Excellence for Research and Education in Russia. G-RISC, the German-Russian Interdisciplinary Science Center will be funded for the next five years by the German Federal Foreign Office with roughly 1.25 million EUR. The aim of the Center of Excellence is to identify the particular strengths of Russian and German science and to promote international networking in training junior researchers and the exchange of lecturers.

Freie Universität and St. Petersburg State University emerged successfully from a competition of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the 2009 ‘Research and Academic Relations Initiative’, which is supporting the establishment of four centres of excellence in Russia, Thailand, Chile and Colombia. The centres are based on cooperation in research and teaching with a German university. The support provided by the initiative is intended as start-up funding.

Free University of Berlin

German Federal Foreign Office