– Our young scientists' school is designed as a platform for exchanging expertise, ideas, and developments between early-career and established researchers from CIS countries. In addition to attending a series of lectures by leading Russian and international experts, its participants will have the chance to present their own research and discuss problems, challenges, opportunities, and prospects with their colleagues, – shared the North-Center Director Alexandra Smirnova.
The school’s primary goal is horizontal networking between young CIS scientists and deepening of existing contacts between the scientific communities of the participating countries.
The project for organizing the international school has won a grant in a 2025 competition of the Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund. This fund supports public diplomacy initiatives that promote international cooperation and help build a Russia-friendly social, political, and business climate abroad. One of the priority areas for the Gorchakov Fund is modern scientific and digital diplomacy opportunities.
The core theme of the 2026 international school at KarRC RAS will be the study of the state of aquatic ecosystems under global climate change. The instructors for the young scientists during practical sessions will be employees of the Northern Water Problems Institute KarRC RAS – leading specialists in various fields, from hydrophysics to paleolimnology. A special block of sessions will be dedicated to interdisciplinary research done by the scientists and their joint projects with other KarRC RAS institutes and third-party scientific and educational organizations.
On November 20th, the project organizers and experts had a working meeting. Karelian scientists are preparing the lecture course and the program of practical sessions to take place in laboratories and outdoors. The lectures will focus on the issues and methods of aquatic ecosystem research. It is expected that KarRC RAS’s foreign partners from Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, China, and India will act as invited experts. During field trips, the learners will take part in integrated hydrophysical research on ice-covered lakes.
Researchers believe Karelia is well-suited for hosting such a school due to its richness in water resources (the republic has over 60 000 lakes, 27 000 rivers, and almost a third of its territory is mires), and owing to a long research history. Scientists at KarRC RAS have been monitoring water bodies located in pristine as well as man-altered catchment areas for many decades.
The competition-based selection among applications for participating in the international school "Under the Pressure of Global Climate Change: A Youth Network for Aquatic Ecosystem Research" starts November 27, 2025 to last until mid-January 2026.
