On June 21 2012 Herzen Vice-Rector Sergey Goncharov met with the Director of the CIS Department of the Russian MFA Mikhail Evdokimov. They discussed the prospects for cooperation between Herzen University and the CIS Department of the Russian MFA in training qualified interpreters for the CIS countries in the St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation. Vice-Rector Sergey Goncharov informed Director Mikhail Evdokimov about the impending signing of the Agreement on scientific, educational and cultural cooperation between Herzen University and the MFA of Kazakhstan. Under this agreement, staff members of the MFA of Kazakhstan will take a course of advance professional training “Language mediation in international multilateral communication”. The pilot project starts in autumn 2012.