Over the past five years, the University of Cambridge has received no research funding from organisations within the Russian Federation or from any individual or organisation currently facing sanctions by the United States, European Union or United Kingdom.

We are not currently in discussions about funding with entities from the Russian Federation or from individuals or organisations currently facing sanctions. We will not enter any such discussions.

Further information

LetterOne

Over the period 2018-2020, the University received £888,000 in research funding from LetterOne, a Luxemburg based Investment Company, for a project on the Wealth Economy. This project ends in September 2022 and there will be no further funding from this source. We note that Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven have stepped down from the company and LetterOne is not subject to sanctions.

Firtash Family

The University some years ago agreed a benefaction of £4.6 million with the Firtash family to support our Ukrainian studies programme. The benefaction from the Dmitry Firtash Foundation is used solely for educational purposes and the Foundation has no influence over its allocation. A further pledge of £1,950,000 was made in 2013 of which only £250,000 was received. That money has never been spent and the relationship was put on pause. The University has received no funding since 2013 and has not had any discussions about further funding since then.

Gazprom

Over the period 2013 – 2015 the University received a total of £260,000 from two Gazprom subsidiaries. These donations supported our Slavonic Studies programme. There have been no further discussions about funding from this source.

Donations

Our records show that we have received less than £35,000 in donations from Russian donors since 2012*. These are mainly small gifts of less than £100 and are not from any individual or organisation currently facing sanctions by the United States, European Union or United Kingdom.

*Note: we do not always collect nationality from our donors; therefore, this is the best data we have available.

Investments

The Cambridge University Endowment Fund has no direct investments in Russia and only negligible indirect exposure through pooled vehicles.

Academic relationships

We have relationships with a small number of academics in Russia, which are unlikely to be affected by the current situation. We will keep this under review.

Relationships with Russian academic institutions

Having reviewed our institutional relationships we have found no current formal links between the central University and any Russian Institution.

At the Departmental level we have found three Memorandums of Understanding:

  • An MoU signed between the Scott Polar Research Institute and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YaNAO) in 2021. Which involves an exchange of a small number of library resources. This is currently paused.
  • An MoU between the Cambridge Language Centre and the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) that agreed to jointly fund the cost of publication of project in May 2021. There is continuing collaboration between a Cambridge academic and a RUDN academic on a follow-up study, which represents a peer-to-peer relationship. There are no financial transactions between RUDN and the Cambridge Language Centre. 
  • An MoU between Lomonsov State University and the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics to help support students from Cambridge to obtain visas to study at Lomonsov during their year abroad.  All four students studying there have already left Russia. There are no plans to send any more students to Lomonsov State University in the foreseeable future.

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