bonn university phd

Universität Bonn

Doctoral Studies and DPhil Programmes: the Faculty of Arts awards the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. phil.)

PhD Examination Procedure and DPhil Programme

The doctorate procedure begins with the admission to the qualification phase and ends with the completion of a supervision agreement . During the next two years of qualification phase (extension is possible) the PhD candidates can participate in doctoral colloquiums as well as a series of supplementary optional courses. In each structured DPhil programme a programme, which is usually designed according to a mix of disciplines, will be provided.

The examination phase will be opened once the dissertation has been submitted to the Examination Office. The awarding of the doctoral title follows the successful completation of the examniation phase.

Important Information

Important information and answers to FAQs

Structured DPhil programme provides a wide range of disciplinary and sometimes interdisciplinary curriculums, which support the PhD candidates with their later academic and non-academic careers.

• Annual Schedule of Structured DPhil Programme 4
• Handbook Structured DPhil Programme 5
• Guideline Financial Support within Structured DPhil Programme 6
• Reimbursement of Incurred Expenses

For more information, please visist the webpage of Structured DPhil Programme in Humanities at the University of Bonn

For programme participants: please use the linked reimbursement of incurred expenses within the framework of programmes. Moreover, please sumbit the original copies of invoices and your bank account information. In addition, please also refer to the above mentioned guideline for financial support within structured DPhil programmes.

Programme Members

Chair: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Ettinger

Prof. Dr. Martin Aust Prof. Dr. Elke Brendel Prof. Dr. Marion Gymnich Prof. Dr. Britta Hartmann Prof. Dr. Roland Kanz Alena Saam

The Cotutelle de thèse at the Faculty of Arts enhances scientific networks to foreign academic institutions and enables PhD candidates to carry out their doctoral studies and research projects at the University of Bonn as well as another partner university. The information below may be helpful for you to participate in Cotutelle de thèse.

• Guideline Cotutelle de thèse 7
• Joint Doctoral Supervision Cotutelle Agreement

What shall I do in order to obtain a doctorate?

The following documents must be submitted to the dean's office of the Faculty of Arts:    

• Application of the admission to the qualification phase
• Supervision agreement
• Copy of transcript of records and copy of degree (if available)

What shall I do, if my overall grade is lower than 2,5?

In this case, a personal statement of the grade, which is prepared by the PhD candidates, and a favourable statement from the supervisor must be first submitted. Afterwards the Doctoral Committee will take account of each individual case and decide whether the PhD candidate is permitted to do a PhD at the Faculty of Arts.

What is the qualification phase?

The qualification phase is the time period, in which the dissertaion is completed.

Which language certificates must be submitted by foreign students?

We accept the DSH-Zertifikat for the German language and the TOEFL-Test or IELTS-Test certificate for the English language.

As a foreign student, can my doctoral procedure directly be approved?

First of all, an application of the admission to the qualification phase must be submitted to the dean's office of the Faculty of Arts. Besides, a copy of your original transcript of records and a certified translation of this transcript of records must also be provided together with your application. Later, the deans's office will forwards these required documents to the central office of international education, which will examine whether all the preconditions for a doctorate have been fulfilled (qualified degrees and grades will also be taken into consideration). Provided that the examination goes well and the corresponding language certifiate (either German or English) is submitted, the doctoral procedure with the application of the admission to the qualification phase is permitted to begin.

• Promotionsordnung vom 04.06.2010 7 7 8 7 7 7 7 8  (PDF)
• Promotionsordnung vom 30.04.2014 8 8 9 8 8 8 8 8  (PDF)
• Ordnung zur Änderung der Promotionsordnung vom 29. April 2015 9 9 10 9 9 9 9 9 (PDF)
• Zweite Ordnung zur Änderung der Neufassung der Promotionsordnung vom 19. Januar 2017 10 10 11 10 10 10 10 10 (PDF)
• Dritte Ordnung zur Änderung der Neufassung der Promotionsordnung vom 11. Dezember 2017 11 11 12 11 11 11 11 11 (PDF)
• Antrag auf Zulassung zur Qualifikationsphase 12 12 13 12 12 12 12 (PDF)
• Bescheinigung über die abgeschlossene Qualifikationsphase 13 13 14 13 13 13 13 (PDF)
• Betreuungsvereinbarung während der Qualifikationsphase (PDF)
• Antrag auf Zulassung zum Prüfungsverfahren 14 14 15 14 14 14 14 (PDF)
• Ablaufschema des Promotionsverfahrens 15 15 16 2 2 2 2 (PDF)
• Gestaltungsvorschriften für die Pflichtexemplare 16 16 17 15 15 15 15 (PDF)

[email protected]

+49 228 73-7268

Your Contact Person for

• Promotion, Cotutelle de thèse

Sophie Lentz

• Cotutelle de thèse

You would like to contact us? Please use our contact form for further questions.

Universität Bonn

Agricultural Faculty

Doctorate at the Faculty of Agriculture

If you are interested in doing a doctorate at the Faculty of Agriculture, you need a confirmation of supervision from a professor and / or funding. We recommend that you carry out detailed research to find out whether your research topic fits into one of our projects or research areas and only then contact the professors. Without a research focus or an idea of the topic you would like to research, there is little point in making an inquiry.

There are several opportunities to do a doctorate at the Faculty of Agriculture. Detailed information on the application and registration process can be found on the doctoral pages .

There are many different collaborative projects in which the Agricultural Faculty is involved and in which a doctorate is potentially possible. In particular, the Collaborative Research Center DETECT and the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence offer a large number of doctoral students the opportunity to do a doctorate on interesting research questions. You can also keep an eye on the job vacancies at the University of Bonn and search the websites of the institutes for doctoral positions.

If you are given the opportunity to do your doctorate as part of a project, funding is usually available through project funds. It is also possible to apply for scholarships. Please note that the programs are very competitive and chances of being accepted are only possible for highly qualified applicants.

Graduate School BIGS Land and Food

The Graduate School of the Faculty of Agriculture does not award scholarships, but offers a structured accompanying program alongside the doctorate, with interesting courses (primarily soft skills) and a social framework program. Please note that this is not a full-time professional course program with coursework to be completed for the doctorate. The application for the BIGS Land and Food must be submitted to the doctoral office in addition to the registration for the doctorate.

The Bonn International Graduate School for Development Research (BIGS-DR)

The Faculty of Agriculture works closely with the Center for Development Research. It offers a structured doctoral program with accompanying specialist training (six-month full-time courses). There is the possibility of receiving a scholarship, the selection is very competitive.

Further PhD programs

Further PhD programs of the Faculty of Agriculture (in cooperation with Forschungszentrum Jülich) are the JUMPA program with a double degree with the University of Melbourne in Australia and various training networks within the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 program (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), such as MANNA or SOPLAS .

For an active exchange and socializing, the Graduate School runs a PhD Café together with the International Affairs Unit. We meet every 14 days on Fridays (12 - 2 p.m.) at the International Affairs Unit at Katzenburgweg 9. All PhD students of the faculty are welcome. Philipp Gutbrod will provide information on the dates.

The International Office of the University of Bonn has a wide range of offers for doctoral students, including German courses, intercultural training, social events and the placement of a pro-buddy (a doctoral student from Bonn, as a buddy to help with formalities, arrival and getting to know each other).

PhenoRob Graduate Training Program

The PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence supports its doctoral students with an interdisciplinary portfolio of courses as part of a graduate training program. Our offer ranges from research-oriented courses on mobile robotics to soft skills courses on video production. The program is tailored to the needs of our doctoral students and promotes interdisciplinarity within our cluster.

Der Exzellenzcluster PhenoRob unterstützt seine Doktoranden durch ein interdisziplinäres Angebotsportfolio im Rahmen eines Graduiertenkollegs. Unser Angebot reicht von forschungsorientierten Kursen zur mobilen Robotik bis hin zu Soft-Skills-Kursen zur Videoproduktion. Das Programm ist auf die Bedürfnisse unserer Doktoranden zugeschnitten und fördert die Interdisziplinarität innerhalb unseres Clusters.

Dr. Sarah Nischalke

Advisor - International

[email protected]

+49 228 73-3877 | +49 160 91104774

Katzenburgweg 9

Universität Bonn

Medical Faculty

Doctorate PhD

Welcome to the website of the PhD Office of the Medical Faculty. Here you will find all information about the PhD procedure, as well as the office hours for support and the dates of the next PhD ceremonies.

The upcoming meeting dates of the doctoral committee as well as the respective deadlines regarding the submission of documents are as follows:

Meeting Dates of PhD-Board      Submission* of applications possible 

Monday, May 27, 2024   -        until Monday, May 6, 2024

Monday, June 24, 2024   -       until Monday, June 3, 2024

Monday, July 22, 2024   -        until Monday, July 1, 2024

Monday, August 19, 2024   -   until Monday, July 22, 2024

Monday, Sept. 23, 2024   -      until  Monday, September 2, 2024

*submission via letterbox "Promotionsbüro" (building 33, Venusberg-Campus 1, Bonn) or postal delivery

Overview of the Process

Process to obtain the Doctoral Degree

Doctoral degree regulations.

In the following, the essential steps for the promotion process are listed. However, to gain a first overview we recommend you to read the regulations carefully. You can find them with all valid versions and changes in the following menu.

Second Doctoral Degree Regulations from 2021

• Second doctoral degree regulations (DE)
• Second doctoral degree regulations (EN)
• First amendment of the regulations (DE)
• Second amendment of the regulations (DE)  

First Doctoral Degree Regulations from 2014

• First doctoral degree regulations (DE)
• First doctoral degree regulations (EN)
• Second amendment of the regulations (DE)
• Third amendment of the regulations (DE)
• Fourth amendment of the regulations (DE)
• Fifth amendment of the regulations (DE) 

Qualification Phase

The first step for a possible admission to the PhD program is the compilation and submission of the documents for the application for the qualification phase. In particular, the checklist provides an overview of the relevant documents which you need to submit with your application . The doctoral committee will then make a decide over your application in one of the regular meetings. In this regard, the stated submission deadlines must be taken into account.

Please drop your application into the letterbox in front of building 33 (Dekanat / letterbox "Promotionsbüro") or send your application by post to the PhD-Office.

Checklist: Documents for the application for admission to the qualification phase (DE/EN)

Declaration of research-oriented employment (DE/EN)

Declaration of previous doctoral degree procedures (DE/EN)

Agreement between applicant and supervisor/first reviewer (DE/ENG)

Dissertation committee (DE/ENG)

Doctorate statistics (DE/EN)

During the Qualification Phase

Here you will find all the templates, sample pages and information on formal criteria necessary for writing the dissertation. Furthermore, you will find information on the required proof of attendance at research-oriented courses.

Option 1: Monography

In this case, the dissertation is written as a monograph. Below you will find formal criteria and templates for writing an inaugural dissertation.

Doctoral thesis 

• Formal criterias (DE)
• Formal criterias (EN)  
• Cover and 2nd page (DE)
• Cover and 2nd page (EN)
• Monography structure (DE)
• Monography structure (EN)  

Information on the Research-Oriented Courses

• Informationen for the attendance at research-oriented courses (DE/EN)

Option 2: Publicationbased thesis

In contrast to the monography, this form of dissertation briefly describes work that has already been published and in light of the current state of knowledge. The formal criteria and templates for writing a publication dissertation can be found below.

• Formal criterias (EN)

Publication based doctoral thesis

• Publication based thesis structure (EN)
• Statement own share (EN)

Examination Phase

After completion of your qualification phase, which usually spans 3 years in a supervisory relationship, the examination phase follows. For this, you submit - as previously with the qualification phase - an application for admission to the PhD doctoral committee. All required documents are listed in the checklist. Depending on whether you are writing a monograph or a publication dissertation, different documents are relevant for submission. The checklist will help you in orientating. The doctoral committee will then decide over your application in one of its meetings. In this regard, the stated submission deadlines must be considered.

General Documents

• Checklist: Documents application for admission to the examination phase  (DE/EN)
• Declaration of compliance with good scientific practice (DE/EN) 
• Declaration print/ULB (DE/EN)
• Proof of successful participation in courses (DE/EN)
• Address of dissertation committee (DE/EN)
• Dissertation committee meeting form (DE/EN)

In case of a Publication Dissertation

• Change to examination phase according to the doctoral degree regulations from 2021 (DE/EN)

Other Documents

If you wish to complete your examination period according to the PhD Doctoral Regulations or if you wish to terminate your PhD program, please consider the following documents.

Furthermore, we ask you to note our information on data protection and the implementation of the DSGVO.

Doctorate Award Ceremony

The dates of this year's doctorate award ceremony are as follows:

Wintersemester:    Saturday, November 9, 2024

completed doctorates 2020

of these as PhD

of these by female doctorates

[email protected]

+49 228 287-10146

Medical Deanery, Building 33, Promotionsbüro PhD

Venusberg-Campus 1

Universität Bonn

Doctoral Studies

Are you thinking about pursuing a doctoral degree at the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Bonn? Below you will find an overview of the steps to take as well as important documents to download.

Currently, you are undertaking your doctoral studies with a doctoral supervisor. You can choose between our doctoral program leading to a Dr. theol. dregree (requires konwledge of German at C2 level) and our new Ph.D. program (no knowledge of German needed).

The Doctoral Regulations and Ph.D. Regulations form the legal basis for your doctoral studies. In our Ph.D. program, you can choose from different majors .

Step 1: Doctoral Supervisior

First, find a doctoral supervisor for your dissertation project. You may ask any professor or private lecturer of the Faculty's departments .

Next, fill in the supervision confirmation form (PDF file for download) and get your supervisor to sign it.

Before you register, please also carefully read the  information on doctoral studies (only available in German) and information on the Ph.D. program at our faculty .

Step 2: Registration

Now you can register for your doctoral studies by sending the supervision confirmation form and the completed Hochschulstatistikfragebogen (questionnaire for statistical purposes) to the Office for Doctoral Affairs by e-mail.

For the registration of your dissertation project, you must also submit the following (original or certified copy):

• Degree Certificates
• Language certificates
• Transcript of Records
• School leaving certificate

Certificate Doctorate Plus

The certificate Doctorate plus can be acquired in the following tracks: Research, Research Management, Business and Organizations Track.

The certificate is jointly issued by the Bonn Graduate Center and its cooperating institutions: Career Center, Human Development, Bonn University and State Library, International Office, Gender Equality Office and Bonner Zentrum für Hochschullehre.

Step 3: Writing Phase

After finding your subject and preparing a synopsis in consultation with your supervisor, it is up to you to write, discuss and perhaps already present parts of your thesis.

In addition to writing the dissertation, the Ph.D. program includes structured doctoral studies , i.e. participation in courses and two international congresses. Details can be found in the information sheet .

It generally takes 3 years full-time to write a PhD thesis, and obviously longer if part-time. In addition to a monograph, the Ph.D. program also offers the option of a cumulative dissertation.

Step 4: Application for the Doctoral Examination

You have completed your thesis? Congratulations!

Submit at least 3 printed copies of your thesis as well as an electronic version to the Office for Doctoral Affairs. The  application form for admission to the doctoral examination andthe required attachments must also be submitted.

Expect a period of nine months between the submission of your thesis and the doctoral examination.

Step 5: Oral Defence or Viva

Get in touch with possible examiners early on.

Once your thesis has been evaluated and accepted by the examination board a date will be set for your oral examination and announced to you by e-mail. Vivas take place on a fixed date, whereas dates for disputations are arranged individually.

If you are defending your thesis in a a disputation , you must submit your arguments to the Office for Doctoral Affairs at least 6 weeks before the date.

Further Procedure

After your successful doctoral examination, you will receive a written confirmation. However, you may not use your doctoral title until you have been awarded your doctorate certificate.

The condition for this is, for example, the submission of a contract for the publication of your doctoral thesis. For alternatives, kindly refer to your Doctoral or Ph.D. Regulations.

There will be a graduation ceremony , to which you, your supervisor and the the second examiner will be invited. You are also welcome to bring other guests with you.

At the graduation ceremony you will receive a certificate and may take the doctoral oath if you would like to. Following the ceremony, you will be given written confirmation that you are now entitled to use the doctoral title .

Your thesis should be published within a year of graduating , otherwise you need to apply for an extension. 7 published copies must be submitted, into which specific details must be inserted by you – the Office for Doctoral Affairs has a template you can use.

And what now? The Career Service of Bonn University can advise you on further career opportunities.

Find important documents as PDF files for download.

Office for Doctoral Affairs

[email protected]

+49 228 73-60034

Dean's Office

[email protected]

+49 228 73-7366

Research Projects

Get an overview of the current research projects at the Faculty of Protestant Theology.

Continue here

Examination Office

The Examination Office will support you with formal and organisational questions regarding your doctorale studies.

The Dean's Office is your contact for all questions concerning the Faculty in Bonn as a whole.

BIGS clinpopscience

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BIGS Clinical and Population Science

Welcome to the Bonn International Graduate School Clinical and Population Science. BIGS Clinical and Population Science offers a structured 3-year PhD program covering a wide range of research activities in both individual and population health areas. As an interdisciplinary research program, BIGS Clinical and Population Science combines the resources of two different Faculties, (Medicine and Agriculture) and also works in close collaboration with top-level independent research institutes located in Bonn, such as the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). This program offers diverse research opportunities with a methodological emphasis on genetics, imaging, and biostatistics. In this world-class research environment, our students work with excellent scientists on highly relevant projects, learning the latest techniques.

Quicklinks:

Stay in contanct:, research groups.

Our research environment is highly collaborative with more than 20 participating research groups employing interdisciplinary approaches. Our PhD students have the opportunity to conduct thesis research on projects such as the Rhineland Study, the DELCODE cohort of people with subjective cognitive decline, the Spinocerebellar Ataxia study ESMI, or the DietBB Competence Cluster in Nutrition Research.

Anthropology

Biomechanics, clinical studies, epidemiology, health services research, teaching program.

BIGS Clinical and Population Science prepares researchers to translate scientific findings into improvements in human health. For this, our program provides an excellent introduction to a wide range of topics and to the innovative technologies that drive clinical and population science  research. Training measures are complemented by mentoring, soft skills courses and comprehensive career development programs. Our goal is to inspire our talented students to make high-impact and innovative research contributions and to foster their scientific career. As all courses are held in English, enrollment in the program requires advanced English language skills.

Admissions Info

JOIN THE BIGS CLINICAL AND POPULATION SCIENCE COMMUNITY

We are delighted that you would like to participate in our international, structured doctoral program at the University of Bonn. Doctoral students have the opportunity to apply to more than 20 research groups. If  you are interested in this international doctoral program in clinical and population science – APPLY NOW!

Our doctoral students are prospective translational scientists from all over the world. More than 60 doctoral students are currently enrolled at our graduate school, of whom about 50% come from abroad!
 Students are represented by the BIGS CPS Student Council. If you have any questions about the Graduate School, don’t hesitate to contact us! To find out more about the people behind the Student Council, read more!

• +49 (0) 151 17194129
• Datenschutz

Under Construction

Sorry, but the mobile website is under construction at the moment, so that not all functions are available.

Bonn doctoral and postdoctoral theses online

The electronic doctoral theses and postdoctoral theses (habilitations) have moved and are now available on bonndoc , the repository of the university of bonn., you wanted to access a specific doctoral/postdoctoral thesis and were redirected to this page.

The previous publication server has been taken offline. You can now find all electronic theses on bonndoc . You have the following options to access the documents:

• If you have the URN of the thesis (e.g. urn:nbn:de:hbz:5-XXXXX), enter it here in the text field and you will be forwarded directly to the document on bonndoc.
• Search for the author and/or title of the thesis in the search field in bonndoc . You can also browse through all electronic theses of the respective faculty on bonndoc using the following links: The Faculty of Protestant Theology The Faculty of Catholic Theology The Faculty of Agriculture The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences The Faculty of Medicine The Faculty of Arts The Faculty of Law and Economics
• Alternatively, you can search for all available theses (print and electronic) in bonnus , the search portal of the University of Bonn.

If you cannot find a thesis, please contact [email protected] .

You would like to publish your thesis online?

All information on this can be found on the website of the dissertations department .

Contact persons: Elena Dyck Jaakko Kneissl eMail [email protected] Phone: +49 228 73-9533

© Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn | Stand: 22.10.2020

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13 May 2024 / News, Research, Events

Doctoral Colloquium PhD Project Lab

Photo: Paul Blickle gives a presentation (EIB)

Last Friday, 3 May 2024, saw another iteration of the PhD Project Lab. Doctoral students from the University of Bonn and the University of Basel presented their research projects to an interdisciplinary audience of doctoral students as well as faculty members from the Institute.

In the first presentation, Paul Blickle (University of Basel) presented his dissertation project on “Ballast. A Global History of Balance at Sea in the 19 th Century”, in which he addressed a severely underappreciated subject in maritime – and global history. Ballast serves as an analytical lens to measure and retrace the social, cultural and economic fabric of the 19 th century world.

Yen-Chi Lu (University of Bonn) discussed the question of how and to what extent the global expansion of Chinese Information and Communications Technology companies are reshaping the core-periphery relations in the global digital economy. To address this question, he theorized how the structures of global economy are being transformed by the interplay of digital capitalism and then presented three case studies to uncover peripheral states’ agency against unfavorable structural constraints and the dominant position of foreign high-tech companies.

Dominika Geiger (University of Basel) presented her PhD project entitled “Across the Cobalt Supply Chain: The People’s Republic of China and the Outsourcing of Global Responsibility”, in which she analyzes the delicate situation of cobalt mining in the copper belt in general – and in the Democratic Republic of Congo in particular in the context of a mounting global demand for these mineral resources vital to facilitate the green energy transition. This all happens against the backdrop of an increasing geostrategic relevance of these resources and ever-expanding Chinese direct investments in Africa.

The PhD Project Lab is a platform of the Graduate Program European Global Studies which enables exchange between early-career and senior researchers and enhances the interdisciplinary dialogue at the Institute. It specifically aims to transcend disciplinary boundaries and is designed to provide a stimulating environment for interdisciplinary research by adopting innovative forms of teaching.

It brings together doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as professors of the research areas Global History of Europe , European Global Knowledge Production and European Law from the Institute for European Global Studies, as well as PhD students from the University, who are attending the PhD Lab in the context of the Katekisama program.

The event was organized by Corey Ross and Ralph Weber , the leaders of the research areas Global History of Europe and European Global Knowledge Production respectively.

Further information:

• Graduate Program European Global Studies
• Research Area “Global History of Europe”
• Research Area “European Global Knowledge Production”

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AI to Make Crop Production More Sustainable AI to Make Crop Production More Sustainable

University of bonn researchers publish agenda for the smart digitalization of agriculture.

Drones monitoring fields for weeds and robots targeting and treating crop diseases may sound like science fiction but is actually happening already, at least on some experimental farms. Researchers from the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn are working on driving forward the smart digitalization of agriculture and have now published a list of the research questions that will need to be tackled as a priority in the future. Their paper has appeared in the “European Journal of Agronomy.”

That the Earth feeds over eight billion people nowadays is thanks not least to modern high-performance agriculture. However, this success comes at a high cost. Current cultivation methods are threatening biodiversity, while the production of synthetic fertilizers generates greenhouse gases, and agricultural chemicals are polluting bodies of water and the environment.

Many of these problems can be mitigated by using more targeted methods, e.g. by only applying herbicides to those patches of a field where weeds are actually becoming a problem rather than treating the whole area. Other possibilities are to treat diseased crops individually and to only apply fertilizer where it is really needed. Yet strategies like these are extremely complicated and virtually impossible to manage at scale by conventional means.

Harnessing high tech and AI to become more sustainable and efficient

“One answer could be to use smart digital technologies,” explains Hugo Storm, a member of the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence. The University of Bonn has partnered with Forschungszentrum Jülich, the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) in Sankt Augustin, the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Müncheberg and the Institute of Sugar Beet Research in Göttingen on the large-scale project geared toward making farming more efficient and more environmentally friendly using new technologies and artificial intelligence (AI).

The researchers hail from all manner of different fields, including ecology, plant sciences, soil sciences, computer science, robotics, geodesy and agricultural economics. In their recently published position paper, they set out the steps that they believe have to be tackled as a priority in the short term. “We’ve identified a few key research questions,” Storm says. One of these relates to monitoring farmland to spot any nutrient deficiency, weed growth or pest infestations in real-time. Satellite images provide a rough overview, while drones or robots enable a much more detailed monitoring. The latter can cover a whole field systematically and even record the condition of individual plants in the process. “One difficulty lies in linking all these pieces of information together,” says Storm’s colleague Sabine Seidel, who coordinated the publication together with him: “For example, when will a low resolution be sufficient? When do things need to get more detailed? How do drones need to fly in order to achieve maximum efficiency in getting a look at all the crops, particularly those at risk?”

The data obtained provides a picture of the current situation. However, farmers are chiefly interested in weighing up various potential strategies and their possible implications: how many weeds can my crop withstand, and when do I need to intervene? Where do I need to apply fertilizer, and how much should I put down? What would happen if I used less pesticide? “To answer questions like these, you have to create digital copies of your farmland, as it were,” Seidel explains. “There are several ways to do this. Something that researchers still need to find out is how to combine the various approaches to get more accurate models.” Suitable methods also need to be developed to formulate recommendations for action based on these models. Techniques borrowed from machine learning and AI have a major role to play in both these areas.

Farmers have to be on board

If crop production is actually to embrace this digital revolution, however, the people who will actually be putting it into action—the farmers—will also need to be convinced of its benefits. “Going forward, we’ll have to focus more on the question of what underlying conditions are needed to secure this acceptance,” says Professor Heiner Kuhlmann, a geodesist and one of the Cluster of Excellence’s two speakers alongside the head of its robotics group Professor Cyrill Stachniss. “You could offer financial incentives or set legal limits on using fertilizer, for instance.” The effectiveness of tools like these, either on their own or in combination, can likewise be gauged nowadays using computer models.

In their paper, the researchers from PhenoRob also use examples to demonstrate what current technologies are already capable of doing. For instance, a “digital twin” of areas under cultivation can be created and fed a steady stream of various kinds of data with the help of sensors, e.g. to detect root growth or the release of gaseous nitrogen compounds from the soil. “In the medium term, this will enable levels of nitrogen fertilizer being applied to be adapted to crops’ needs in real time depending on how nutrient-rich a particular spot is,” Professor Stachniss adds. In some places, therefore, the digital revolution in agriculture is already closer than one might think.

The PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence is home to researchers from the University of Bonn, Forschungszentrum Jülich, the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) in Sankt Augustin, the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Müncheberg and the Institute of Sugar Beet Research in Göttingen. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Hugo Storm, Sabine Julia Seidel, Lasse Klingbeil, Frank Ewert, Harry Vereecken, Wulf Amelung, Sven Behnke, Maren Bennewitz, Jan Börner, Thomas Döring, Juergen Gall, Anne-Katrin Mahlein, Chris McCool, Uwe Rascher, Stefan Wrobel, Andrea Schnepf, Cyrill Stachniss, Heiner Kuhlmann: “Research priorities to leverage smart digital technologies for sustainable crop production,” in: “European Journal of Agronomy,” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2024.127178 .

Dr. Hugo Storm Institute for Food and Resource Economics at the University of Bonn Phone: +49 228 73-2721 Email: [email protected]

PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn Katharina Monaco, Chief Administrative Officer Phone: +49 228 73-60811 Email: [email protected] Internet: www.phenorob.de

To please Putin, universities purge liberals and embrace patriots

Russian university leaders are imbuing the country’s education system with patriotism to favor Putin, quashing Western influences and dissent.

Two weeks before the start of his 25th year as Russia’s supreme political leader, Vladimir Putin made a sweeping proclamation: “Wars are won by teachers.”

The remark, which Putin repeated twice during his year-end news conference in December, shed light on a campaign he is waging that has received little attention outside wartime Russia: to imbue the country’s education system with patriotism, purge universities of Western influences, and quash any dissent among professors and students on campuses that are often hotbeds of political activism.

At St. Petersburg State University, this meant dismantling a prestigious humanities program called the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences. For more than a decade, until May 2022, the faculty — or college — was led by Alexei Kudrin, a liberal economist and former finance minister who had been a close associate of Putin’s since the early 1990s, when they were deputy mayors together in St. Petersburg.

“We had many classes on U.S. history, American political life, democracy and political thought, as well as courses on Russian history and political science, history of U.S.-Russian relations, and even a course titled ‘The ABCs of War: Causes, Effects, Consequences,’” said a student at the faculty, also known as Smolny College. “They are all gone now,” the student said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

About this series

In a radical reshaping of Russia’s education system, curriculums are being redrawn to stress patriotism and textbooks rewritten to belittle Ukraine, glorify Russia and whitewash the totalitarian Soviet past. These changes — the most sweeping to schooling in Russia since the 1930s — are a core part of Putin’s effort to harness the war in Ukraine to remaster his country as a regressive, militarized state.

Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leaders of Russian universities, which are overwhelmingly funded by the state, have zealously adopted the Kremlin’s intolerance of any dissent or self-organization, according to an extensive examination by The Washington Post of events on campuses across Russia, including interviews with students and professors both still in the country and in exile.

Professors who spoke out against the war, or allowed safe spaces for students to question it, have been fired. Students who picketed or posted on social media for peace were expelled.

Meanwhile, those who volunteer to fight in Ukraine have been celebrated in line with Putin’s promises that war heroes and their descendants will become the new Russian elite, with enhanced social benefits, including special preference for children seeking to enter top academic programs. Normally, such programs require near-perfect grades and high scores on competitive exams — uniform standards that applicants from all societal backgrounds have relied on for decades.

And the most fundamental precept of academic life — the freedom to think independently, to challenge conventional assumptions and pursue new, bold ideas — has been eroded by edicts that classrooms become echo chambers of the authoritarian nativism and historical distortions that Putin uses to justify his war and his will.

As a result, a system of higher learning that once was a beacon for students across the developing world is now shutting itself off from peer academies in the West, severing one of the few ties that had survived years of political turbulence. Freedom of thought is being trampled, if not eradicated. Eminent scholars have fled for positions abroad, while others said in interviews that they are planning to do so.

At the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, officials last July created the Ivan Ilyin Higher Political School, which is now being led by Alexander Dugin, a fervent pro-Putin and Orthodox Christian ideologue who was tasked with “revising domestic scientific and educational paradigms and bringing them into line with our traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.”

“There has been a catastrophic degradation in Western humanitarian history,” Dugin said at a January seminar on transforming Russian humanities education. “This is evidenced by gender problems, postmodernism and ultraliberalism. We can study the West, but not as the ultimate universal truth. We need to focus on our own Russian development model.”

How we reported ‘Russia, Remastered’

Last month, students pushed an online petition to protest the naming of the school after Ilyin, a philosopher who defended Hitler and Mussolini in World War II and advocated for the return of czarist autocracy in Russia. In a statement to Tass, the state-controlled news service, the university denounced the petition as “part of the information war of the West and its supporters against Russia” and asserted, without providing evidence, that the group behind it had no connection to students at the school.

Programs specializing in the liberal arts and sciences are primary targets because they are viewed as breeding grounds for dissent. Major universities have cut the hours spent studying Western governments, human rights and international law, and even the English language.

“We were destroyed,” said Denis Skopin, a philosophy professor at Smolny College who was fired for criticizing the war. “Because the last thing people who run universities need are unreliable actors who do the ‘wrong’ thing, think in a different way, and teach their students to do the same.”

The demise of

Smolny College

The demise of Smolny College

St. Petersburg State University, commonly known as SPbU, has long been one of Russia’s premier academies of higher learning. It is the alma mater of both Putin, who graduated with a degree in law in 1975, and former president Dmitry Medvedev, who received his law degree 12 years later and now routinely threatens nuclear strikes on the West as deputy chairman of Russia’s national security council.

In many ways, the university has become the leader in reprisals against students and staff not loyal to the Kremlin, with one newspaper dubbing it the “repressions champion” of Russian education. Its halls have become a microcosm of modern Russia in which conservatives in power are pushing out the few remaining Western-oriented liberals.

Like other aspects of Putin’s remastering of Russia — such as patriotic mandates in the arts and the redrawing of the role of women to focus on childbearing — the shift in education started well before the invasion of Ukraine. In 2021, Russia ended a more than 20-year-old exchange program between Smolny College and Bard College in New York state by designating the private American liberal arts school an “undesirable” organization.

Jonathan Becker, Bard’s vice president for academic affairs and a professor of political studies, said the demise of Smolny was emblematic of a wider shift in Russia as well as a new intolerance of the West.

“A huge number of faculty have been let go, several departments closed, core liberal arts programs which focus on critical thinking have been eliminated,” Becker said. “All of that has happened, and it’s not just happened at Smolny — it has happened elsewhere. But we were doubly problematic because we both represent critical thinking and partnership with the West. And neither of those are acceptable in present-day Russia.”

In October 2022, in a scene captured on video and posted on social media, dozens of students gathered in a courtyard to bid a tearful goodbye to Skopin, Smolny’s cherished philosophy professor who was fired for an “immoral act” — protesting Putin’s announcement of a partial military mobilization to replenish his depleted forces in Ukraine.

The month before, according to court records and interviews, Skopin was arrested at an antiwar rally. He ended up sharing a jail cell with another professor, Artem Kalmykov, a young mathematician who had recently finished his PhD at the University of Zurich.

That fall, the university launched an overhaul that all but shut Smolny College and replaced the curriculum with a thoroughly revamped arts and humanities program.

The dismantling of Smolny marked the resolution of a years-long feud between Kudrin, the liberal-economist dean, and Nikolai Kropachev, the university rector, whom tutors and students described as a volatile character with a passion for building ties in the highest echelons of the government.

It’s hard to describe the insane level of anxiety the students felt at the start of the invasion, and I’d say 99 percent of them were against it.”

Denis Skopin

Former philosophy professor at Smolny College

It’s hard to describe the insane level of anxiety the students felt at the start of the invasion, and I’d say

99 percent of them were against it.”

It’s hard to describe the insane level

of anxiety the students felt at the start

of the invasion, and I’d say 99 percent

of them were against it.”

It’s hard to describe the insane level of anxiety

the students felt at the start of the invasion,

and I’d say 99 percent of them were against it.”

In February, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, sent a heartfelt birthday message to Kropachev, thanking him for his “civic and political activity” and for “comprehensive assistance in replenishing personnel.”

One student described how Kropachev once interrupted a meeting with students and hinted that he needed to take a call from Putin, in what the student viewed as a boast of his direct access to the Russian leader. Both St. Petersburg State University and Moscow State University were assigned a special status in 2009, under which their rectors are appointed personally by the president.

Skopin, who earned his PhD in France, and his cellmate, Kalmykov, were perfect examples of the type of academic that Russia aspired to attract from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s — enticed after studying abroad to bring knowledge home amid booming investment in higher education. But by 2022, the system seemed to have no need for them.

Video of the gathering in the courtyard shows students erupting in sustained applause, and one student coming forward to hug Skopin.

“It’s hard to describe the insane level of anxiety the students felt at the start of the invasion, and I’d say 99 percent of them were against it,” Skopin said.

After his dismissal, some students tried to fight the administration’s plan to dismantle the Smolny program.

“At one point we found ourselves in a situation where out of 30 original faculty staff, we had just three tutors left,” said Polina Ulanovskaya, a sociology student and activist who led the student union. “And the quality of education definitely suffered, especially all of the politics-related classes.”

Ulanovskaya said that on the political science track, only two professors have stayed, and many classes were eliminated, including a human rights course. There are now just two courses offered in English, down from 21.

With every new professor, Ulanovskaya said, she felt a need to test the waters. Would the word “gender” trigger them? Could she say something opposition-leaning? What would be a red flag?

Ulanovskaya opted out of writing a thesis on her main research topic — Russian social movements, politicization of workers and historic-preservation activists — out of fear that it would be blacklisted. Instead, she wrote about Uruguay.

“The main problem at the faculty now is that there is no freedom and especially no sense of security,” she said. “I guess there is no such thing anywhere in Russia now ... you can’t trust anyone in any university.”

A few weeks after The Post interviewed Ulanovskaya last fall, she was expelled, formally for failing an exam, but she and Skopin said they believe it was retaliation for her activism.

Another student, Yelizaveta Antonova, was supposed to get her bachelor’s degree in journalism just days after legendary Novaya Gazeta newspaper reporter Yelena Milashina was brutally beaten in Chechnya, the small Muslim-majority republic in southern Russia under the dictatorial rule of Ramzan Kadyrov.

Antonova, who interned at Novaya Gazeta and looked up to Milashina, felt she could not accept her diploma without showing support for her colleague. She and a roommate printed a photo of Milashina, depicting the reporter’s shaved head and bandaged hands, to stage a demonstration at their graduation ceremony — much to the dismay of other classmates, who sought to block the protest.

“They essentially prevented us from going on stage,” Antonova said. “So we did it outside of the law school, and we felt it was extra symbolic because Putin and Medvedev studied in these halls.”

They held up the poster for about half an hour, until another student threatened them by saying riot police were on the way to arrest them. Antonova believes the protest cost her a spot in graduate school, where she hoped to continue her research comparing Russia’s media landscape before and after the invasion.

Eight months after the graduation ceremony, authorities launched a case against Antonova and her roommate for staging an unauthorized demonstration — an administrative offense that is punishable by a fine and puts people on law enforcement’s radar. Antonova left the country to continue her studies abroad.

Ideological divides

The history college at St. Petersburg State has long been a battleground for various ideologies, with cliques ranging from conservatives and Kremlin loyalists to unyielding opposition-minded liberals, according to interviews with students and professors.

The February 2022 invasion of Ukraine caused a deeper split. Some students and professors openly praised Putin’s “special military operation,” as the Kremlin called the war, while others joined rallies against it.

“The war gave them carte blanche,” said Michael Martin, 22, a former star at the college — to which he was automatically admitted after winning two nationwide academic competitions and where he earned straight A’s.

Martin was a leader of the student council, which on the day of the invasion issued an antiwar manifesto quickly drafted in a cafe.

Another history student, Fedor Solomonov, took the opposite view and praised the special military operation on social media. When Solomonov was called up as part of the mobilization, he declined to take a student deferral and went to fight. He died on the front on April 1, 2023.

Soon after Solomonov’s death, screenshots from internal chats where students often debated history and politics were leaked and went viral on pro-war Telegram channels. In some, Martin and other classmates expressed antiwar sentiments, while another showed a message — allegedly written by an assistant professor, Mikhail Belousov — vaguely describing events in Ukraine as “Rashism,” a wordplay combining “Russia” and “fascism.”

In an aggressive online campaign, pro-war activists demanded that Belousov, who denied writing the message, be fired and that the antiwar students, whom they labeled “a pro-Ukrainian organized crime group,” be expelled.

“A cell of anti-Russian students led by a Russophobe associate professor is operating at the history faculty,” read posts on Readovka, a radical outlet with 2.5 million followers. “They are rabid liberals who hate their country.” Belousov was dismissed and seven students, including Martin, were accused of desecrating Solomonov’s memory and expelled.

Belousov has gone underground and could not be reached for comment.

“They essentially tried to make me do the Sieg Heil,” Martin said, recalling the expulsion hearing, where he said the committee repeatedly asked leading questions trying to get him to say the war was justified. The committee also asked him repeatedly about Solomonov.

“I said he was for the war and I was against it — we could argue about that,” Martin said. “I didn’t find anything funny or interesting in this — I’m truly sorry for what happened to him, but at the same time, I don’t think that he did something good or great by going to war.”

Martin said that as the war raged on, the university began “glorifying death” and praising alumni who had joined the military.

This narrative also warped the curriculum.

A few weeks into the invasion, the school introduced a class on modern Ukrainian history, with a course description asserting that Ukrainian statehood is based “on a certain mythology.”

They essentially tried to make me do the Sieg Heil.”

Michael Martin

Former student at St. Petersburg State University

Belousov, the former assistant professor, criticized a course titled “The Great Patriotic War: No Statute of Limitations,” taught by an instructor with a degree in library science. The key message of the course is that the Soviet Union had no role in the start of World War II — a denial of Russia’s joint invasion of Poland with Nazi Germany in 1939.

According to a government document reviewed by The Post, Russia’s Higher Education Ministry plans to introduce this course at other universities to ensure the “civic-patriotic and spiritual-moral education of youth,” specifically future lawyers, teachers and historians, and to “correct false ideas.”

“These are obviously propaganda courses that are aimed at turning historians into court apologists,” Martin said.

Martin was expelled days before he was supposed to defend his thesis. He quickly left the country after warnings that he and his classmates could be charged with discrediting the army, a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison. A criminal case was initiated against Belousov on charges of rehabilitating Nazism.

“This is all very reminiscent of the Stalinist 1930s purges,” Martin said. “The limit of tolerated protest now is to sit silently and say nothing. There is despair at the faculty and a feeling that they have crushed everything.”

New Russian elite

To lure more Russian men to fight in Ukraine, the government has promised their families various sweeteners, including cheap mortgages, large life insurance payments and education benefits for their children.

In 2022, Putin approved changes to education laws to grant children of soldiers who fought in Ukraine admissions preferences at Russia’s best universities — schools that normally accept only students with near-perfect exam scores and impressive high school records.

Now, at least 10 percent of all fully funded university spots must be allocated to students eligible for the military preference. Those whose fathers were killed or wounded do not need to pass entry exams.

The new law solidified a previous Putin decree that gave special preferences to soldiers and their children. In the 2023-24 academic year, about 8,500 students were enrolled based on these preferences, government officials said. According to an investigation by the Russian-language outlet Important Stories, nearly 900 students were admitted to 13 top universities through war quotas, with most failing to meet the normal exam score threshold.

In areas of Ukraine captured by Russian forces since February 2022, a different takeover of the education system is underway, with Moscow imposing its curriculum and standards just as it did after invading and illegally annexing Crimea in 2014.

For the 2023-24 academic year, according to the Russian prime minister’s office, more than 5 percent of fully state-financed tuition stipends — roughly 37,000 out of 626,000 — were allocated for students at universities in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson or Zaporizhzhia, the four occupied or partly occupied areas of Ukraine that Putin has claimed to be annexed.

The relatively large allocation of tuition aid in occupied areas shows how financial assistance and education are central to Putin’s effort to seize lands in southeast Ukraine and absorb its population into Russia in violation of international law.

Deans of several leading Russian universities have made highly publicized trips to occupied Ukraine to urge students there to enroll into Russian schools, part of a multipronged effort to bring residents into Moscow’s orbit.

The Moscow-based Higher School of Economics, once considered Russia’s most liberal university, recently established patronage over universities in Luhansk, with Rector Nikita Anisimov often traveling there.

An inward turn

A few weeks after the invasion started, Moscow abandoned the Bologna Process , a pan-European effort to align higher education standards, as Russia’s deans and rectors strove to show they weren’t susceptible to foreign influence.

Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov said Russian universities would undergo significant changes in the next half-decade, overseen by the national program “Priority 2030,” which envisions curriculums that ensure “formation of a patriotic worldview in young people.”

Soon after Russia quit the Bologna Process, Smolny College was targeted for overhaul.

“The decision was an expected but distinct shift from the more liberal model of Russian higher education policy that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Victoria Pardini, a program associate at the Kennan Institute, a Washington think tank focused on Russia.

Another prestigious school, the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, canceled its liberal arts program in 2022 after authorities accused it of “destroying national values.”

In mid-October 2023, the Higher Education Ministry ordered universities to avoid open discussion of “negative political, economic and social trends,” according to a publicly disclosed report by British intelligence. “In the longer term, this will likely further the trend of Russian policymaking taking place in an echo-chamber,” the report concluded.

Russia’s position among

countries by number of

scholarly papers published

Source: Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics

of Knowledge

Russia’s position among countries by

number of scholarly papers published

Source: Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge

Russia’s position among countries by number of

Many international exchange programs have been canceled — some because Russian students now have difficulty obtaining visas. Still, a heavy brain drain is underway. “All those who could — they left the country,” Skopin said of his students. “Those who can’t are thrashing around as if they are in a cage.”

Martin is among those who got out — he was recently accepted into a prestigious master’s program abroad and plans to continue his research into 19th-century Australian federalism.

Skopin now teaches in Berlin and is a member of Smolny Beyond Borders, an education program that seeks funding to cover the tuition of students who leave Russia because of their political views. As of late 2023, an estimated 700 students were enrolled.

Analysis: Gazprom’s Declining Fortunes Spell Trouble for Moscow

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Gazprom’s Declining Fortunes Spell Trouble for Moscow

The gas giant’s record loss should worry the kremlin on several fronts..

• Agathe Demarais

At the end of 2022, Dmitry Medvedev—Russia’s former prime minister and the current deputy chairman of its Security Council—offered his predictions for the coming year. He warned that Europeans would suffer badly from Russia’s decision to curb natural gas exports to the European Union, suggesting that gas prices would jump to $5,000 per thousand cubic meters in 2023—around 50 times their prewar average. He probably assumed that that sky-high prices would translate into a windfall for Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom, which was still supplying several European countries via pipeline, ramping up exports of liquefied natural gas, and eyeing new deals with China. Perhaps Medvedev also hoped that Europeans would beg the Kremlin to send the gas flowing again.

It turns out that Medvedev might want to polish his crystal ball: Last year, European gas prices averaged a mere one-tenth of his number. And just this month, Gazprom posted a massive $6.8 billion loss for 2023, the first since 1999.

Gazprom’s losses demonstrate the extent to which the Kremlin’s decision to turn off the gas tap to Europe in 2022 has backfired. In 2023, European Union imports of Russian gas were at their lowest level since the early 1970s, with Russian supplies making up only 8 percent of EU gas imports, down from 40 percent in 2021. This has translated into vertiginous losses for Gazprom, with the firm’s revenues from foreign sales plunging by two-thirds in 2023.

Gazprom’s woes are very likely setting off alarm bells in Moscow: With no good options for the company to revive flagging gas sales, its losses could weigh on Russia’s ability to finance the war in Ukraine. This is especially ironic given the fact that EU sanctions do not target Russian gas exports; the damage to the Kremlin and its war effort is entirely self-inflicted.

The most immediate impact of Gazprom’s losses will be on Russian government revenues, a crucial metric to gauge Moscow’s ability to sustain its war against Ukraine. Poring over Gazprom’s latest financials paints a striking picture. Excluding dividends, Gazprom transferred at least $40 billion into Russian state coffers in 2022, either to the general government budget or the National Welfare Fund (NWF), Moscow’s sovereign wealth fund.

This is no small feat. Until last year, Gazprom alone provided about 10 percent of Russian federal budget revenues through customs and excise duties as well as profit taxes. (Oil receipts usually account for an additional 30 percent of budget revenues.) This flood of money now looks like distant history. In 2023, the company’s contribution to state coffers through customs and excise duties was slashed by four-fifths, and like many money-losing firms, it is due a tax refund from the Russian treasury.

For Moscow, this is bad news on several fronts. Because of rising military expenses, the country’s fiscal balance swung into deficit when Moscow invaded Ukraine. To help plug the gap, the Kremlin ordered Gazprom to pay a $500 million monthly levy to the state until 2025. Now that the company is posting losses, it is unclear how it will be able to afford this transfer. In addition, Gazprom’s contribution to the NWF will probably have to shrink. For the Kremlin, this could not come at a worst time: The NWF’s liquid holdings have already dropped by nearly $60 billion , around half of its prewar total, as Moscow drains its rainy-day fund to finance the war. Finally, Gazprom’s woes could prompt the firm to shrink its planned investments in gas fields and pipelines—a decision that would, in turn, hit Russian GDP growth.

As if this was not enough, a closer look at Gazprom’s newly released financials suggests that the worst may be yet to come, with three telltale signs that 2024 could be even more difficult than 2023.

First, Gazprom’s accounts receivable—a measure of money due to be paid by customers—are in free fall, suggesting that the firm’s revenue inflow is drying up. Second, accounts payable shot up by around 50 percent in 2023, hinting that Gazprom is struggling to pay its own bills to various suppliers. Finally, short-term borrowing nearly doubled last year as Russian state-owned banks were enlisted to support the former gas giant.

Whereas these figures come from Gazprom’s English-language financials, the company’s latest Russian-language update yields two additional surprises—both of which show that the firm’s situation has worsened even further since the beginning of the year.

First, short-term borrowing during the first three months of 2024 roughly doubled compared to the previous quarter. If Russian state-owned banks continue to cover Gazprom’s losses, the Russian financial sector could soon find itself in trouble. This begs a tricky question: With the NWF’s reserves dwindling and Moscow’s access to international capital markets shut down, who would pay a bailout bill? Second, Gazprom’s losses were almost five times greater in the first quarter of 2024 than in the same period of 2023, hinting that the firm may post an even bigger loss this year than it did in 2023.

Looking ahead, 2025 will be an especially tough year for Gazprom. The transit deal that protects gas shipments through Ukraine via pipeline to Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia will probably expire at the end of this year, further curbing what’s left of Gazprom’s exports to Europe. A quick glance at a map makes it clear that China is now the only remaining option for Russian pipeline gas.

Yet Beijing is not that interested: Last year, it bought just 23 billion cubic meters of Russian gas, a mere fraction of the 180 billion cubic meters that Moscow used to ship to Europe. Negotiations to build the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline , which would boost gas shipments to China, have stalled. And in truth, China is not a like-for-like replacement for Gazprom’s lost European consumers. Beijing pays 20 percent less for Russian gas than the remaining EU customers, and the gap is predicted to widen to 28 percent through 2027.

Without pipelines, raising exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is the only remaining option for Moscow. However, Western policies make this easier said than done. Western export controls curb Russia’s access to the complex machinery needed to develop LNG terminals, such as equipment to chill the gas to negative160 degrees Celsius so that it can be shipped on specialized vessels. And Washington has recently imposed sanctions on a Singapore-based firm and two ships working on a Russian LNG project, signaling that it will similarly designate any entity willing to work in the sector. Finally, U.S. sanctions make it much harder for Russian firms to finance the development of new liquefaction facilities and the gas field designed to supply them. In December, Japanese firm Mitsui announced that it was pulling staff and reviewing options for its participation to Russia’s flagship Arctic LNG 2 project. As a result, the Russian operator announced last month that it was suspending operations of the project, which was originally slated to launch LNG shipments early this year.

Gazprom’s cheesy corporate slogan—“Dreams come true!”—does not ring so true anymore as Moscow’s former cash cow becomes a loss-making drain. Data from the International Energy Agency confirms the extent of the Kremlin’s miscalculation when it turned off the gas tap to Europe: The agency predicts that Russia’s share of global gas exports will fall to 15 percent by 2030—down from 30 percent before Moscow’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine.

This was probably predictable. It is hard to imagine how a gas exporter configured to serve European customers and reliant on Western technology could thrive after refusing to serve its main client—signaling to every other potential customer, including China, that it is an unreliable supplier. Corporate empires tend to rise and fall, and it looks like Gazprom will be no exception to the rule.

Agathe Demarais is a columnist at Foreign Policy , a senior policy fellow on geoeconomics at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests. Twitter:  @AgatheDemarais

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Penn Nursing’s rigorous academic curricula are taught by world renowned experts, ensuring that students at every level receive an exceptional Ivy League education . From augmented reality classrooms and clinical simulations to coursework that includes experiential global travel to clinical placements in top notch facilities, a Penn Nursing education prepares our graduates to lead.

Honorary Doctorate for Penn Nursing Professor

Therese S. Richmond, PhD, RN, FAAN , the Andrea B. Laporte Professor of Nursing, received an honorary degree of Doctor of Public Service (DrPS hon) from the Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland . The honor, conferred during the School of Nursing’s convocation on May 14, 2024, recognized Richmond’s extensive research and preeminent role in exploring the critical issues related to gun violence and the resulting trauma on individuals and communities.

“I am deeply honored to receive this honorary doctorate and thank the Board of Regents for the recognition. Life is fragile and the impact of firearm violence on health and well-being is significant,” said Richmond. “We can reduce firearm-related harms through rigorous science, partnering with communities who bear the disproportionate burdens of these harms, and respecting differing worldviews.”

Richmond’s research and scholarship are grounded in understanding and overcoming health inequities experienced by individuals and families living in low-resource and often disenfranchised communities. She is committed to identifying and overcoming structural barriers that lead to and reinforce inequities. Richmond’s research has a dual approach. She partners with valuable community partners to examine the impact of living in pervasively violent, low-resource communities on families and rigorously producing data that can be used by agencies to inform programmatic initiatives to reduce inequity and improve health, well-being, and safety. She also has a substantive body of research that focuses on disparate outcomes after serious injury including PTSD and depression and to identify modifiable targets that drive disparities seen in transition to chronic pain after serious injury.

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Three Duke Psychiatry Faculty Members Win School of Medicine Awards

Three Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences faculty members— Melanie Bonner, PhD , David Madden, PhD , and Joseph McClernon, PhD —have won 2024 School of Medicine awards.

Excellence in Professionalism Award

Melanie bonner, phd.

Professor in Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Assistant Dean of Student Services in the School of Medicine

The Excellence in Professionalism Award recognizes a faculty member who exemplifies professionalism and personifies Duke’s guiding principles of respect, trustworthiness, diversity, teamwork, and learning.

Dr. Bonner’s work spans across patient care, research, education, and leadership. Since 1999, she has served as the director of the pediatric neuropsychology service, where she has trained practicum students, interns, and post-doctoral fellows. She’s also an associate member of neuro-oncology at the Duke Cancer Institute and works closely with the pediatric brain tumor program.   Dr. Bonner’s research focuses on evaluating and remediating cognitive functioning in children with illnesses that impact the central nervous system. She has co-authored more than 85 journal articles and several book chapters and has delivered more than 130 presentations and invited talks.   Dr. Bonner teaches, supervises, and mentors clinical psychology doctoral interns and graduate students, as well as teaching graduate psychology courses. From 2004 to 2015, she served as the director of graduate studies in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. In September 2023, Dr. Bonner was named assistant dean of student services for the School of Medicine.

Dr. Melanie Bonner is the epitome of professionalism. She is warm, kind, approachable, humble, and a leader in our community. Dr. Bonner is admired for her endless energy, affable spirit, and brilliant mind. I truly have no idea how she is able to do all that she does. Patients, students, and faculty turn to Dr. Bonner for help because we all know of her competency, compassion, and integrity. — Chris Mauro, PhD, associate professor and nominator

Career Mentoring Award in Basic and Translational Science Award

David madden, phd.

Professor in Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Chair of the Scientific Review Committee in the Center for Brain Imaging & Analysis

The Research Mentoring Awards recognize faculty members for excellence in research mentoring. Excellence can be demonstrated by the accomplishments of individual mentees, by programs implemented by the mentor, or by exceptional creativity in mentoring.

Dr. Madden’s research focuses on the cognitive neuroscience of aging, including the investigation of age-related changes in perception, attention, and memory, using both behavioral measures and neuroimaging techniques.

The behavioral measures have focused on reaction time, with the goal of distinguishing age-related changes in specific cognitive abilities from more general effects arising from a slowing in elementary perceptual processes. The neuroimaging techniques help define the functional neuroanatomy of those cognitive abilities (e.g., selective attention, memory retrieval, and executive control processes).

Dr. Madden’s research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1980, and he has co-authored nearly 200 scientific publications during his career.

Dr. Madden’s research program relies on the participation of investigators with different perspectives and types of expertise. In mentoring of postdoctoral fellows and students, he emphasizes an appreciation of the previous findings and theories leading to current research projects, as well as the development of the collaborative skills needed to conduct interdisciplinary research.

“I nominated Dr. Madden for this award because he is an accomplished researcher, thoughtful mentor, and delightful colleague who views mentorship as a passion more than an embedded component of his job duties. As a first-generation woman researcher from a low socioeconomic background, his individualized mentorship during my postdoctoral training has contributed significantly to my growth as an independent scientist.” — Jenna Merenstein, PhD, postdoctoral scholar and nominator

Career Mentoring Award in Clinical Research including Population Health Research and Data Science

Joseph mcclernon, phd.

Professor in Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Associate Director, Duke Clinical & Translational Science Institute

Dr. McClernon’s research is focused on increasing understanding of the behavioral and neurobiological bases of tobacco use, developing new and more effective interventions to address nicotine dependence, and informing the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) regulation of tobacco products. 

Dr. McClernon has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, FDA, and foundations since 2002, has co-authored 180 scholarly publications, and has two patents. 

He has served in several leadership roles in the Duke Clinical and Transitional Science Institute; in 2023, he was named associate director of the institute. 

Throughout his career, Dr. McClernon has actively mentored high school students, undergraduates, research staff, graduate students, medical students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-career faculty at Duke and beyond. Many of his former trainees are faculty or staff scientists at academic medical centers, government agencies, and research institutes. While a division director in Psychiatry, he instituted a monthly group mentoring program (“Joe with Joe”)—which lasted nearly a decade—and a travel award for early career investigators.

“Dr. McClernon is the most wonderful mentor imaginable. His guidance and support have been instrumental in the development of my scientific research success and career goal to be an academic physician-scientist focusing on tobacco research. I am excited and honored to have Dr. McClernon as a life-long mentor and collaborator.” — Dana Rubenstein, Duke University medical student and nominator

The awards were presented on May 13 at the 2024 School of Medicine Spring Faculty Celebration, held at the Doris Duke Center at Sarah P. Duke Gardens.

Learn more about the 2024 School of Medicine faculty awards and award winners .