Visit by DFG Vice-President Frank Allgöwer

Chief executive of German Research Society arrived with his colleague, Director of DFG Office Russia/CIS Wilma Rethage, on 27th February.

Dr. Rethage visited KFU just recently, on 23rd January, and was asked to invite Dr. Allgöwer to visit.

In his greeting today, Rector Ilshat Gafurov said, “I hope that our projects will rise to a new level. Just last week we returned from Germany, where we toured a number of clinics. Our university has a clinic as well, and we came to an agreement for our doctors to exchange experience and start helping European patients.”

Kazan University traditionally has expansive links with German colleagues in all major fields of science, so much so that the country can now be named partner number one for KFU in Europe and the Americas. DFG, in particular, has so far financed 10 KFU’s projects. Its global budget is 3 billion euros a year.

Dr. Allgöwer answered, “We fund both small and large projects in all areas. Predominantly, we finance German researchers, but we are also interested in developing relationships with overseas colleagues. We aim for them to establish stable ties with the German side. We are glad that we have projects with KFU and, of course, we want to widen them. To that end, you can apply to our Moscow office.”

The co-financing method utilized by DGF stimulates overseas scientists to seek partnerships with Germany. In its turn, KFU is ready to invest in such developments.

The guests also visited the mathematics and IT cluster of KFU, currently represented by three institutes, to discuss prospects. Rector Gafurov tasked the directors with advancing new ideas for bilateral work.