Popular Science in Russian: Book Development Program

We support authors working on high-quality popular science books in Russian

The Winners of the Popular Science in Russian: Book Development Program

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the inaugural Popular Science in Russian: Book Development Program, launched to support the creation of high-quality popular science books in Russian. The program is implemented in partnership with the Russian American Science Association (RASA) and aims to strengthen the intellectual space in the Russian language while promoting the development of contemporary popular science literature.
Ten grants of $10,000 each have been awarded to authors from seven countries. Over the next 18 months, the winners will work on preparing their manuscripts in collaboration with scientific editors.

List of winners*:

Dmitry Bayuk, research fellow at Université Paris Cité
Evgeny Berkovich, professor of mathematics (scientific editor: Grigory Yablonsky, editor-in-chief of the journal Seven Arts)
Simkha Borman, graduate of the Faculty of Biology at Lomonosov Moscow State University (scientific editor: science communicator Alexander Markov)
Alexander Marfin, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Houston
Denis Tikhonov, postdoc at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science CFEL, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY and lecturer at the Svobodny Universitet / Free University (scientific editor: Nikita Medvedev, group leader at the Institute of Physics and Institute of Plasma Physics, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic)
Yulia Shaykhutdinova, biologist

"We received about thirty applications from a dozen European countries, as well as Russia and the United States. The proposed topics included physics, mathematics, IT and AI, biology, chemistry, and interdisciplinary subjects. The winning projects cover all of these fields except AI, which surprised us somewhat, while biology and the life sciences were the most strongly represented. The high quality of the applications and the geographic diversity of the participants make us confident that popular science publishing in Russian has a global future," says Zhanna Nemtsova, Director of Grants Management and Operations at FDLV.

Each grant totals $10,000, including $2,000 allocated to the required scientific editor. In total, ten book projects have been selected for support. Applications underwent peer review, and the final funding decisions were made by the grant committee, which included Tatiana Bronich (Northeastern University), Biana Godin (Houston Methodist Research Institute), Igor Efimov (Northwestern University), Igor Ivanov (School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-sen University), and Tatiana Tatarinova (University of La Verne). The key evaluation criteria were scientific accuracy, clarity of presentation, the absence of ideological bias, and strong potential to engage a broad audience.

* Some winners did not consent to the publication of their personal information in open sources.