On Friday November 26, 2014 Prof. Vladimir N. Vasilyev, rector of ITMO University in St. Petersburg and Dr. Louise Gunning, chair of the board of the University of Amsterdam, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to arrange for a joined PhD programme between both universities. This is an extension of an existing agreement from 2012 on a double degree master programme in Computational Science, which has been successfully implemented and first graduates received their degree in June 2014. Prof. Peter Sloot and Prof. Alfons Hoekstra from the Institute of Informatics of FNWI, also affiliated to ITMO, have realised a successful scientific collaboration between UvA and ITMO in the field of Computational Science. Together with Prof. Alexander Boukhanovsky from ITMO, they have taken the initiative to create this joined PhD program. They obtained a number of grants on critical transitions in sociological systems and on coronary artery disease and expect that PhD students working on these projects will receive the first joined PhDs in three years from now.
