Strong centres: DWIH Moscow
German Houses of Research and Innovation promote the internationalisation of science and research around the world.
The DAAD maintains strong relations with Russia. Gregor Berghorn heads the DAAD office and the DWIH in Moscow. The offices are located in the former embassy of the GDR. Although the Ukraine crisis brings back memories of the Cold War era, at this time Berghorn is travelling to an unusual collaborative project: the first German-Russian university is being opened in Kasan in southern Russia. “The German-Russian Institute of Advanced Technologies is certainly the most outstanding example Germany is setting in Russia,” says Berghorn about the new higher education institution with a strong emphasis on applied science. Research on concrete innovations also interests the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce Abroad, which is one of a total of 12 DWIH partner organisations here. “Exchange organised by the DWIH benefits both the German and Russian sides,” says Berghorn. German construction firms, for example, profit from Russian expertise in dealing with permafrost; Russia also continues to be well-placed in the field of space technology. In the other direction, the DWIH reports in detail on the German research system and regularly invites top German researchers to Russia: Nobel laureate Harald zur Hausen, for example, is speaking in Nizhny Novgorod at the symposium on Immunology and Cancer, and Martin Faulstich, Chairman of the German Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU), is presenting a lecture on sustainable energy in St Petersburg. The DWIH is also organising the 4th German-Russian Week of Young Scientists in St Petersburg. With regard to the political crisis, Gregor Berghorn says: “We must not lose young Russian intellectuals as contact partners.”
