This new project is funded by the "Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)" by agency of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) through the resources of "Zukunftsinitiative Hochschulen/UMTS - Zinsersparnisse" for three years. Within this project, the cooperation of scientists and students from foreign institutions into science and education of German Universities will be enhanced.

It enables the exchange of students, Ph.D.-students and post-docs.

In the project are included:

• Universidade Federal Saõ Carlos, Saõ Carlos, Brazil,
• Bulgarian Academy of Science, Sofia, Bulgaria,
• University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, Sofia, Bulgaria, and
• University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA.

In particular, the following is enabled:

• scholarships for advanced students, who would like to spend one or two semesters in Jena University,
• short-time scholarships for foreign Ph.D.-students,
• long-time scholarships for foreign students who would like to do a substantial part of their Ph.D.-thesis in Jena University and
• scholarships for foreign post-docs.

Additionally two guest professorships for six month each are financed

The project is focused on materials science and materials chemistry. The topic of the cooperation between the participating institutions is "preparation and properties of glass-ceramics". Here, especially glass-ceramics with small crystallite sizes and a large volume content of crystallites are considered. This is of high scientific interest especially with respect to optical applications. This primarily should be achieved by the chemical composition of the glass. At the moment, oxyhalogenide glasses are favored. They also offer the advantage to enable light induced nucleation. Besides, rare earth elements may be incorporated in the crystal phase precipitated. This should enable the preparation of luminescence and laser materials.