In October 2024, the DFG invited a high-ranking delegation of its partner organization NRFU, the National Research Foundation of Ukraine, to Bonn for an exchange at the DFG Head Office. The delegation also visited the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with the goal of deepening institutional cooperation with Germany.
Over the course of the week, the delegation met with many representatives of various DFG departments to exchange on various topics relating to science administration and research funding. This was important for both sides in order to coordinate planned joint funding calls. Among the topics discussed the joint DFG-NRFU call, its terms and conditions, was one of the most important parts of the working visit, according to the NRFU report on the visit. The participants reviewed the models of calls held by DFG in cooperation with other international partners and agreed on the next steps necessary to implement the call to support Ukrainian researchers. Currently, the institutions have already agreed on the topics for the upcoming call.
The DFG has advised the NRFU since its foundation and works closely with it as a partner organization. In 2020, the DFG and NRFU signed their first cooperation agreement for the joint funding of German-Ukrainian research projects. Ukraine has traditionally been one of the DFG’s priority countries for funding in Eastern Europe and bilateral relations have a high degree of continuity. In addition to the NRFU, the DFG maintains contacts with the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) and the country’s leading universities.
- DFG report on the visit (in German)/ (in Ukrainian)
- NRFU report on the visit (in English)