Astrakhan State University joint research and innovative projects, joint courses for students, international conferences. ASU successfully realizes its agreements on “double diplomas” signed with Université de Sophia Antipolis (France) and with Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts, USA). The agreements concern joint Masters’ programs. ASU has been chosen by Harvard University (USA) as a pilot site in Russia to organize an educational program in international competitiveness. The two-year experience gained by ASU’s Russian Language Summer School for American students has made it possible for the parties to sign a cooperation agreement till 2012. ASU has become one of 16 basic Russian Universities to form the
Harvard University by the 19th century, Harvard had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's long tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university; Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. A. Lawrence Lowell, who followed Eliot, further reformed the undergraduate curriculum and undertook aggressive expansion of Harvard's land holdings and physical plant. James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war.