In other news, the Institute of Chemistry won a megagrant from the Russian Government.

The conference consists of the main event and a special youth forum. About 2,000 researchers of all ages from 42 countries came to Kazan to spend this week in discussions and networking.

Among the guests from Moscow are Aide to the President Andrei Fursenko and Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Russia Aleksey Lopatin. The conference is the biggest of such events in Russia and is supervised by the federal ministry. The first iteration was held in Saint-Petersburg in 2014 and was a huge success, so the decision to make it regular was soon made.

The Grant Council meeting was held on the eve of the same day, September 20th. 484 applications were received, and only 40 of them came out on top. Kazan University had won on two occasions before yesterday; the total financing amounted to 135 million rubles. This time KFU made five applications, of which one was selected in the end. The grant went to Dr. Christoph Schick (University of Rostock) who will helm the project together with the Department of Physical Chemistry of KFU. The research will be focused on physicochemical aspects of catalysis and intermolecular interactions.