Ever more political parties, international organizations and businesses claim that they are in need of professional expertise on Russia. However, especially Germany lacks systematic scientific and professional promotion of young Russia experts. Low prestige, limited professional opportunities and insufficient networking reduce the attractiveness of Russia oriented research and policy making. Consequently, German and Russian policy makers and members of civil society fail to understand each other as the number of young people with a thorough understanding of Russian politics, society and economics is constantly decreasing. To address this problem we intend to bring together young scholars, professionals and journalists and experienced experts from both countries to jointly develop the expertise that is needed to further Russian-German relations.

Our goal is to engage German and Russian students and young professionals in a scientific and professional exchange during an annual short conference that will alternately take place in Germany and Russia. At this conference, we want to give participants the possibility to get to know other prospective scientists and practitioners and to exchange experiences, expertise and contacts to jointly develop new perspectives on Russian-German relations. At the same time, we intend to win experienced and established “senior experts” from science, politics and practice to participate in the conference and take on the role of mentors and enablers that actively support this new generation of “junior experts”. As the core principle is that junior and senior experts meet at eye level, the topical modules of the forum are worked out by participants and senior experts alike.