University Alliance Ruhr Red carpet rolled out in Moscow

The tenth anniversary of the Moscow Liaison Office of the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr) was celebrated in the Russian capital. Together with Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen, NRW Minister for Culture and Science, the 24 members of a delegation of the three UA Ruhr universities visited the city. Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and TU Dortmund University signed cooperation agreements with partner universities on 8 April 2019. On the following day, the University of Duisburg-Essen and RUB hosted a Science Day together with further partners.

For Minister Pfeiffer-Poensgen, the anniversary was an occasion to get to know the work of the Liaison Office, cooperating scientists and university rectorats as well as the local partners. "I would like to congratulate you on ten years of Liaison Office Moscow and, above all, on what it is today: a beacon project for the internationalization of universities in North Rhine-Westphalia. As Minister of Science, I am delighted that the international networking of North Rhine-Westphalian universities has been so successful. Because in order to further strengthen the state's science and research location, we need international exchange," she said.

Cooperation in the humanities, social sciences and mathematics

RUB has been cooperating with the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University) in Moscow at various levels for years - for example in philosophy, Slavic studies, mathematics and within the framework of the international project "Network University" with the Goethe-Institut Moscow. Cooperation in economics and other sciences is in the offing. The various activities have now been combined in a cooperation agreement. The agreement was signed by Professor Yaroslav Kuzminov, Rector of HSE University, and Professor Axel Schölmerich, Rector of RUB, in the presence of Minister Pfeiffer-Poensgen.

Cooperation in the engineering sciences

At the National Research University for Nuclear Technology (MEPhI), the TU Dortmund University and the MEPhI signed a Memorandum of Understanding which strengthens and expands the cooperation between the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the TU Dortmund University and the Faculty of Nuclear Physics and Engineering of the MEPhI. "The agreement focuses on the exchange of students and researchers as well as joint teaching and research projects," said Professor Insa Melle, Vice Rector of Studies at the TU Dortmund University, who signed the agreement. Cooperation with Russian partners has a long tradition at TU Dortmund University: since 2015 there has been a German-Russian Collaborative Research Centre in Physics and since the 1990s student exchanges have been maintained with the Southern Federal University, the former University of Rostov-on-Don.

Science Day: Wastewater and waste

Technologies for the treatment of wastewater and waste were the focus of the German-Russian Science Day on 9 April. The lecture and networking event presented application-oriented research topics of North Rhine-Westphalian universities. The aim was to find new Russian partners for future cooperation in the field of environmental technologies.

On site were scientists from the University of Duisburg-Essen, RUB, the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences and the Zenit Business Forum. Here they met colleagues from the National Research University Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (MGSU), the Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (NNSAGU) and the Federal Research Centre "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The visit to Moscow also served to prepare a summer school for young Russian and German scientists in 2020, for which committed partners were sought.