For Soviet scientists, Africa was for a long time an area not covered by academic biological research. Therefore, in 1987, an agreement was signed on the establishment of the Joint Soviet-Ethiopian Biological Expedition (JEBE). Since then, the Department of Biological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Ethiopia has been continuously operating for 35 years.

The main objectives of scientific cooperation in the framework of SSEBE (since 1991, SREBE) were: joint study of biological resources of the most important regions of Ethiopia, promotion of training of national specialists and development of relevant infrastructure.

The idea to set up a new structure emerged in 2017. The emergence of the Joint Russian-Ethiopian Biological Research Centre (JREBC), the formal point for the creation of which was the July 2021 decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is to reach a new level of cooperation.

"Preparations for the opening of the Joint Russian-Ethiopian Center for Biological Research in Ethiopia began thanks to the decree of the President of the Russian Federation, but so far the project has not moved to the stage of practical implementation," said Deputy Director of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution Problems. Yuri Dgebuadze, deputy director of the A.N. Severtsov Institute for Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at a recent meeting of the RAS Presidium.

"The work has moved on a little bit now, a package of documents has been prepared by the Academy, everything has been given to the ministry, but nothing has started yet, no funding has been opened. We believe that the creation of the Joint Biological Research Centre requires all possible support," Dgebuadze concluded.

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