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More than 2,000 events scheduled for Russia-UK reciprocal Year of Science

MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Russia and UK have scheduled more than 2,000 events in the framework of the reciprocal Year of Science and Education, including a photo exhibition timed for the jubilee since the birth of the world’s first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the Russian President’s special envoy for international cultural cooperation, Mikhail Shvydkoi told TASS.

"There are many interests and the Year of Science and Education is remarkable in terms of the number of events, with some 2,000 events scheduled," Shvydkoi said, adding that the project of a ‘science train’ in the Moscow metro was already in the offing. "And our Moscow colleagues will launch a ‘science train’ in the London Underground," he said.

Also, the year of science will start off with an exhibition devoted to the 80th anniversary since the birth of the world’s first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. Shvydkoi recalled that in 2015 London’s Science Museum hosted a highly successful Russia exhibition ‘Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age’.

The organizers of the Year of Science and Education said a number of projects that were launched in 2016 in the format of the reciprocal Year of Language and Literature would continue in 2017. One of them is a universal dictation in the Spell Well series that will be offered in Russian and English likewise.

"In spite of political complications, the turbulent political context and incredibly knotty relations between the UK and Russia, we maintain humanitarian cooperation nonetheless and do this in full scale and scope," Shvydkoi said.

The plan of events is still in the phase of finalization but it is already clear that Russian universities are responding well enough to it and showing readiness to cooperate, said the Deputy Minister of Education, Lyudmila Ogorodova.

"Take, for instance, the Far-Eastern Federal University that has drawn up a program for twenty events," she said.

Russia and the UK will do educational and research exchanges, which experts have found to be the most promising ones, namely, science, biotechnologies and material science.

Ogorodova also said the Russian education authorities were discussing patterns for post-graduate studies and dual diplomas with universities in the UK, and primarily with Oxbridge.