2014-07-07

6th Georgian-German School and Workshop in Basic Science

The 6th Georgian-German School and Workshop in Basic Science – Ten Years of Georgian-German Science Bridge was opened at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) on July 7. TSU Rector, Academician Vladimer Papava, Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, Tamar Sanikidze, representatives of the German Embassy to Georgia, Georgian and German academic circles and TSU students attended the event.

TSU Rector Vladimer Papava said that “during the conference Georgian and German physicists will discuss modern scientific achievements. The conference is very important; several agreements were concluded during the conference, which will bring scientific activities of Georgian and German physicists closer and what is most important, this is not the project of only our university: the Georgian Technical University and Ilia State University are also involved in it. This is a common state project and I am deeply convinced that it will be successful.”

Georgian Minister of Education and Science, Tamar Sanikidze also addressed the participants of the conference: “The conference is important as the 10th anniversary of mutual cooperation is marked today. Our universities and German colleagues achieved excellent results during these 10 years. We think that their relations should be supported by the state in order to make this relationship more systematic and long-term. We have already prepared several very important documents for signing and by this we will support the work between the consortium of Georgian universities and the Jülich Centre and other research institutions of Germany.” 

“Today we mark the 10th anniversary of Georgian-German scientific cooperation that is a very important date for us. The Jülich Centre represents the German side in this cooperation, where Georgian scientists, PhD students are able to conduct joint research with German colleagues. It is very important because in the period of globalization it is important that global groups work to settle global problems, those problems, on which the Jülich Centre is working,” Head of the Board of Directors of the Jülich Research Centre, Sebastian M. Schmidt said.

Several agreements were signed on the sideline of the conference envisaging the creation of joint Georgian-German MA programs and internships for Georgian students at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research and the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science.

Along with Georgian scientists, directors and leading specialists from the Jülich Research C
entre, as well as professors from the universities of Bonn, Münster, Cologne, Aachen and Düsseldorf are also participating in the school and workshop.
The first conference was dedicated to Hadron Physics and it was held in 2004. It was jointly organized by High Energy Physics Institute, Institute of Nuclear Physics (IKP) at Jülich Centre and UNESCO International School in Physics and Mathematics. The conference proved extremely successful; it became traditional and is now held biennially. The only exception was the year 2008, when the August war between Russia and Georgia thwarted the conference.
In 2010 the conference topics significantly expanded and the Georgian Technical University also joined it. Simultaneously, an idea of Georgian-German Science Bridge connecting people and knowledge emerged.

The Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation makes a significant financial contribution to the conference. Due to co-financing by this foundation, the involvement of Georgian students in the research carried out at the Jülich Research Centre has significantly increased over past years. TSU students work on their master’s and doctoral theses at the institutes of the Jülich Research Centre in frames of international collaboration. In the near future it is planned to create joint PhD programs for successful PhD students at German universities that will enable Georgian students to get double degree diplomas.  

The Ilia University will also participate in this year’s anniversary conference. The conference topics have further expanded covering a significant area of fundamental and applied research. The representatives from 6 institutes of the Jülich Research Centre and several universities will also participate in the conference. It has already been two years that the TSU Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences launched its cooperation with the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Bonn University. The Volkswagen Charitable Foundation provides financial support to this cooperation. Recently the University of Siegen (Germany) also joined collaborative activities.          

The conference will end on July 12.

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