The EU is the world’s major global player in the international trade, being the largest trading block. The EU is committed to multilateralism and has acknowledged the fundamental importance of WTO in the international trade system, and supports the work of the WTO on multilateral rule-making, trade liberalisation and sustainable development. Russia is a recent WTO member. It is a strategically important country for the EU. Therefore, ensuring effective cooperation between EU and Russia in the WTO framework is an important goal, which should be achieved by sound policies based on solid research, multilateral discussions and exchanges.Given the above, the overall objective of the proposed Jean Monnet Network is to improve relations between the EU and Russia using the WTO as a mutually important platform for cooperation. The specific objective is therefore to promote research, exchanges, excellence in teaching, and fostering dialogue on policy making for the beneficial cooperation of the EU and Russia in the WTO framework. The target group of the project are academic professionals and young researchers, including postgraduate students, and policy-makers working on the issues within the thematic framework of the project.To do that we will establish a network of academic institutions to problematize the abovementioned issues. All the partners — academic institutions and respective scholars — have been identified as part to the Jean Monnet Network given their previous activities together with the applicant and between each other and their special interest in EU Trade Law, External Relations Law, economic aspects threof and WTO reflected in joint activities in the framework of previous projects.