Letter of the Chairman

 March 26, 2014

Dear participants,

Some people express concerns regarding the travel restrictions associated with the very complicated political situation.

Coming back to Moscow from US, I tried to clarify the situation at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They told me that there are no travel restrictions for foreign scientists, who want to take part in the Symposium, from the Russian side. There are no additional complications in the visa process: just a standard procedure is applied.

Therefore, my personal understanding is the following:

1. EuroQSAR-2014 is not a Russian but a European Symposium, which will be held in St. Petersburg on August 31st – September 4th 2014. The decision of the International scientific community to carry out this Symposium in Russia is not a “gift for Russia”; I agreed to take these duties despite the very difficult situation with current funding of science in Russia.
   
   
2. Certainly, each researcher decides to take or not to take part in the Symposium taking into account her/his personal situation. However, cancellation of participating in this Symposium could not be considered as punishment of Russia or Russian politicians; instead, it will be a punishment of the whole International scientific community and scientists (including Russian researchers as well).
   
   
3. There are no travel restrictions from the Russian side for foreign scientists who want to take part in the Symposium; The standard visa process is applied.

In case of any question, please, do not hesitate to contact us (secretariat@ldorganisation.com)

We are looking forward to meeting you in St-Petersburg!

Best regards,

Vladimir Poroikov, Prof. Dr.
Chairman of the EuroQSAR-2014 Symposium
Head of Department for Bioinformatics and Laboratory for Structure-Function Based Drug Design
Institute of Biomedical Chemistry of Rus. Acad. Med. Sci.
Pogodinskaya Str., 10
Moscow, 119121
Russia

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