Dr Sergei Pisarevsky awarded Russian Megagrant

The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation recently announced the outcome of the seventh competition for “megagrants”. These grants, of up to 90 million rubles (~AUD1.9 mil) each, are awarded for a period of three years, from 2019 to 2021.

Grants are allocated for scientific research which aims to meet the challenges and priorities of the scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation and which may lead to innovative technologies to support the economy. There was also special emphasis placed on increasing the participation of young specialists in scientific research on providing and the training of highly qualified personnel.

The Grants Council considered 354 applications, and selected 36 projects to be supported within the framework of the 7th contest of “megagrants”. In total, 23 foreign scientists and 13 Russian academics will carry out scientific activities across 18 universities and 14 scientific organizations.

Dr Sergei Pisarevsky, a member of the Earth Dynamics Research Group at Curtin, is the Lead Scientist of one of the chosen projects. Sergei’s grant (075-15-2019-1883), titled “Orogenesis: Assembly and Growth of Continents and Supercontinents”, will lead to the creation of a new high-class center for geochronology, geochemistry and paleomagnetism at the Institute of the Earth’s Crust, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
This center will enable the development of a series of paleogeographic models describing the emergence and evolution of the accretionary growth of the Siberian Craton in a global context, its collision with Baltica and the terranes of West Siberia which resulted in the formation of Eurasia as well as the models of the related collisional and accretionary orogens and associated ore formation processes, the processes of the formation and development of sedimentary basins and hydrocarbon fields.

Congratulations Sergei!