The signing took place at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines during an international conference on environmental history.

Among the participants were Director of the Institute of Psychology and Education of KFU Aydar Kalimullin and Senior Lecturer Andrey Vinogradov from the Elabuga Institute of KFU.

Elabuga Institute and Mississippi State University signed a memorandum of understanding during the conference. The document was signed by Director of Elabuga Institute Elena Merzon and Provost of MSU Jerome A. Gilbert. Memorandum was worked out with the assistance from Andrey Vinogradov and Associate Professor Stephen Brain.

The memorandum chiefly touches upon cooperative environmental history research. The cooperation started thanks to the conference titled “Environmental History in Russia” which was held in Elabuga in November 2014 and was highly praised by the European Society for Environmental History.

Environmental history is one of the new interdisciplinary research areas going through rapid development nowadays. It combines research in history, environmental studies, urban studies and economics. Environment & History journal published by the European Society for Environmental History is included in Scopus database.

Elabuga Institute also has its own Center for Environmental History.