The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) and the University of London have agreed to launch three projects of the Russian-British master's program pertaining to the digital economy.
This comes as part of a bilateral cooperation agreement signed between the two educational establishments in Moscow on Thursday.
The agreement stipulates the implementation of three programmes, including MSc Data Science, MSc Supply Chain Management and Global Logistics as well as LLM (Master of Laws).
The first two projects are due to be launched simultaneously launched at the University of London, RANEPA and the National University of Singapore.
Apart from RANEPA rector Vladimir Mau and University of London spokesman Mike Winter, the Wednesday signing ceremony was attended by Sir Laurie Bristow, British Ambassador to Russia.
When asked how important is for the UK to develop full-fledged partnership with countries outside the EU as time ticks for the 31 October 31 Brexit deadline, Bristow said that there are two aspects to the problem.
They pertain to the discussion on “the future of the relationship we have with our European friends and partners,” he noted, adding that a “separate question is what sort of relationship we want to build with Russia.”
Referring to “very difficult” political relationship between the two governments, Bristow said that “the relationship between the UK and Russia is a much wider, deeper and longer term than disagreements between the governments.”
“What this programme is about is helping us to build the sort of relationship we want with Russia; it’s a relationship built on mutual benefit and cooperation. It’s also about the future; as I said earlier, the graduates from this programme and programmes like this are the people who will be running Russia and the UK 20 and 30 years from now. That’s why we invest in it now,” Bristow concluded.
Relations between Russia and the UK have been effectively frozen since a March 2018 attack on former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK town of Salisbury.
London blames Moscow for the attack but Moscow has repeatedly refuted the accusations as baseless.
