Proposal for Marie Curie Network (MCN).The German/Russian Virtual Network in Bioinformatics “Computational Systems Biology” is aimed on both research and education. EU Seventh Framework Programme (Marie Curie Network, MCN) supports collaboration in education and its conditions look very appropriate for our purposes. The Meeting participants prepared brief description of the Network proposal for MCN. The main idea of the proposal concerns the fact that the Network participants and collaborating universities are highly qualified in certain fields of bioinformatics and systems biology. Thus, each collaborating group could prepare a few special courses in the fields of their excellence oriented on the PhD-students. These courses should be available for the group of selected PhD-students from the collaborating universities: 2-4 PhD-students from each group could take these courses (e.g., through Internet (distant learning) in combination with face-to-face trainings, tests and, finally, exams). In the frame of MCN we could organize 1 – 2 summer or winter schools for the participants where they will meet the lecturers and get training in these courses to increase the learning quality. Such an approach may provide an efficient knowledge transfer and acquisition from the well-qualified specialist to PhD-students in the frame of integrative education program. Some details of the Proposal (prepared according to MCN demands) are given below:A. Scientific topicTitle: Informational Infrastructure for Systems BiologySome Proposed Courses (examples) and Participants (very preliminary):molecular database systems (Unversity Cologne (Prof.Dr. Schomburg), Laboratoire de Génétique cellulaire, Toulouse Midi-Pyrenees Genopole, France (Prof. Claude Chevalet))web-interface for communications (Italy (Prof. Dr. L. Milanesi), Heidelberg (EML Research GmbH))visualization in systems biology (University Bielefeld (Prof.Dr. Hofestaedt), Brooker Daltonics GmbH (Dr. Thiele), Heidelberg (EML Research GmbH))database integration (St-Petersburg Polytechnical University (Prof.Dr. Samsonova), Novosibirsk State University (Prof.Dr. Kolchanov), University Bielefeld (Prof. Dr. Hofestaedt))ontology (Rothamsted Research (Prof.Dr. Rawlings);Bielefeld University (Dr. Koehler))data mining/text mining (Novosibirsk State University (Prof.Dr. Kolchanov)); University Bielefeld (Prof. Hofestaedt); Rothamsted Research (Harpenden (Prof.Dr. Rawlings), Bielefeld (Dr. Koehler)); University Cologne (Prof.Dr. Schomburg)), St-Petersburg Polytechnical University (Prof.Dr. Samsonova).networks modeling and simulation (Novosibirsk State University (Prof.Dr. Kolchanov); Bielefeld University (Prof.Dr. Hofestaedt)), St-Petersburg Polytechnical University (Prof.Dr. Samsonova) (models based on nonlinear reaction-diffusion equations, analysis of the system dynamics)experimental / computer interface (tools for primary data analysis) (Brooker Daltonics GmbH (Dr. Thiele), Centre for Bioengineering RAS (Prof. Dr. Skryabin), Institute of Physical-Chemical Medicine (Prof. Dr. Govorun)), St-Petersburg Polytechnical University (Prof.Dr. Samsonova)(acquisition of data sets suitable for modeling from biological images, LIMS for acquisition, processing and analysis of the image information)B. Training and Transfer of KnowledgeTransfer of knowledge is the main idea of the proposal since each partner will prepare special course(s) and these courses will be available for all the collaborating groups. We propose that: Each PhD student selected for this program will have two instructors (internal & external).At least two schools (and/or workshops) per year will be organized by collaborating groups in different places.During these events (school/workshops) the PhD-students will get training and pass exams to verify the education quality.Each part should have support (probably, from MCN or from several sources including MCN) for PhD-students, consumables, workshops, servers, soft, administrators… This may also greatly enhance productive collaboration in the research projects between the Network participants.Educational program could be composed by an Advisory Board (where all the collaborating groups will be presented). Special www-portal for communications and education itself is required.Important notes. Systems biology needs this information infrastructure to increase the education quality; it is extremely expensive to keep the high education standards locally in all the rapidly developing field of systems biology. However, such an integration may solve the problem. Just integration of specialsts in different fields of systems biology may provide an informational platform for education program of a high quality. If this collaboration will take place, it may be used as a background to get additional resources from the national ministries of education or different funds.