Saratov State University named after N.G. Chernyshevsky (Emperor Nikolayev's) opened in 1909 – is one of the oldest and leading scientific educational centers of Russia. In 2012 SSU takes 9th position according to the data of rating agency which estimated scientific achievements of Russian universities and takes position in TOP-5 of the scientific and educational institutions, leading at nanotechnologies. 

  

In 2007 BRIDGE joint research project had united British Queen Mary University of London and Saratov State University under supervision of Prof. Gleb Sukhorukov from UK side and Dr. Dmitry Gorin from Russian side. Joint research center of technologies and measurement of nanostructures was created in 2008 as a result of this collaboration. Now it acts as a hub connecting international scientific group that works in wide field of material science concentrating on nanocomposite multilayers appications.

At the moment this group includes scientists from MSU, Crystallography institute, Max Plank Institute of colloids and interfaces (Golm/Potsdam, Germany). Thanks to support of Russian RFBR and Turkish TÜBITAK, Ankara University scientists under supervision of Prof. Yalchin Elerman joined collaboration in 2009.

Since 2007 6 workshops showing results of collaboration were carried out (2007 in London, 2009 in Saratov, 2011 in Antalya, 2013 in Golm-Potsdam, 2014 in Ghent, 2015 in Saratov). The 7^th one is being planned for 2016 in Tomsk, Russia.