Siberian Federal University

Emilio Botin, the President of the Santander Group and Eugene A. Vaganov, Rector of Siberian Federal University signed the appendix to the Agreement on cooperation the present day. It allows SibFU and Santander Bank to broaden a framework of the existing cooperation and offer new initiatives to increase quality of educational and R&D activities of Siberian Federal University.
It will be recalled that SibFU and Santander Bank have already signed the framework Agreement on cooperation on the 24th of September, 2008 with the aim of supporting academic and R&D activities of the University. The Appendix signed today contains a number of key cooperation aspects and mechanisms of their financial support on the part of the Bank.
First of all, the Spanish Center will be established in the Institute of Philology and Language Communication of Siberian Federal University. It will allow SibFU to develop programmes of learning Spanish, expand the Spanish language as the first or second foreign language among students and inform students about different educational programmes, scholarships and opportunities of apprenticeship in Spanish universities.
The Center is planned to be opened in September, 2009 along with the First Hispanists’ Congress which is expected to be held in September as well. Santander Bank shall provide support to the University in selecting and inviting the best specialists in linguistics from the leading Spanish universities to the Congress.
Santander Bank is also planned to participate in setting up e-library in the University.
The most important aspect of cooperation is aimed at establishing the Department of Environment and Climatic Changes on the base of the University. As explained by Eugene A. Vaganov, Rector of Siberian Federal University, the main aim of the Department is monitoring of climatic changes, examination of the pollution level in the environment, distribution of research results and improvement of education in the field of ecology.
Moreover, the appendix to the Agreement signed today settles the obligations of Santander Bank in terms of supporting participation of SibFU educators of Spanish in qualification programs of the University of Alcala (Spain) and developing academic student exchange through Marco Polo Programme and Babson College Programme in the universities of Spain, Portugal, Latin America and China.
Emilio Botin, the President of Santander Bank declared that the Bank intends to transfer 55000 EUR annually to Siberian Federal University to develop joint projects till 2011.
Emilio Botin pointed out in his report that Siberian Federal University puts an emphasis on innovative activities which represent not only possibilities of scientific and educational activities in Russia but also the future development of Siberian region and the Russian Federation as a whole.
Apart from cooperation in the sphere of science and education, Santander Bank is interested in considering possibilities of participation in realization of state-of-the-art projects not only in Krasnoyarsk Krai but also in Siberia as a whole in the nearest future.