St Petersburg University wins a mega-grant to launch a new project

The 10th mega-grant competition of research projects supervised by world’s leading scholars received 102 applications from 36 countries. The Grant Council selected eight winning projects to be implemented in Russian universities and research organisations under the supervision of world-renowned scholars. One of these projects will be developed at St Petersburg University. The new mega-grant project ‘Analysis, probability, quantum theory, integrable systems, machine learning and their applications’ will be implemented in the existing laboratory at St Petersburg University, headed by mathematician Håkan Hedenmalm, Professor of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) and Chief Research Associate at St Petersburg University. 

"This year, on the instructions of the head of state, the mega-grant programme has been revised: the research grant funding and project duration have been significantly increased. The new terms will help to attract world-renowned researchers to work in Russia and achieve technological leadership, which is a national development goal outlined in the Executive Order of President Vladimir Putin. The mega-grant programme facilitates nationwide and worldwide cooperation of researchers, including compatriots living abroad. Thanks to the programme, 345 world-class laboratories have been created on the basis of about 150 educational and research organisations," said Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. 

One of the key conditions for mega-grant recipient researchers is their gradual relocation to the Russian Federation. Thus, in the first year of the project, the researchers will need to stay in the country for at least three months, the second year for at least six months, and the following years — to work in Russia on a permanent basis. According to Valery Falkov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, the most important task of the mega-grant competition is to attract world’s leading scholars to Russia to create new research teams here.

For the first time, under the updated mega-grant programme, researchers will receive funding of up to 500 million roubles for up to five years, with opportunities to extend the research period for up to three years, to establish world-class teams and laboratories. The Grant Council had quite a difficult task to select the most promising applications from experts in different fields of science. Of course, among the key selection criteria was the relevance of the project for ensuring Russia’s technological sovereignty and practical contributions of the research to solving the challenges facing our country today.

Valery Falkov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation

The St Petersburg University project will receive funding of 500 million roubles over the five-year grant period. This will enable solving a number of major challenges related to the application of probabilistic methods and techniques in various areas of mathematics and physics. 

According to the head of the research team, Professor Håkan Hedenmalm, the Laboratory activities will contribute to a significant expansion of current research in mathematical analysis, probability theory and their applications in machine learning and statistical physics. 

"In addition, we plan to develop cutting-edge research in new areas, including: point processes, integrable dynamical systems, and their application in the theory of random matrixes; packing problems; applications in signal analysis; colour correction problems; and mathematical processing of medical data," Professor Håkan Hedenmalm added. 

Currently, St Petersburg University hosts 10 research centres and laboratories opened in collaboration with partners from overseas, and laboratories created with the support of the mega-grant programme of the Government of the Russian Federation. The first mathematical laboratory became the Chebyshev Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory established in 2010 in the first wave of the mega-grant competitions. The Chebyshev Laboratory was founded and is headed by Stanislav Smirnov who is Professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Also in 2010, he was awarded the Fields Medal. 

Since the inception of the mega-grant programme, St Petersburg University has established 16 laboratories engaged in research in: chemistry; mathematics; medical biotechnology; computer and information sciences; earth sciences; psychology; nanotechnology; and others.