Moroccan and Israeli Universities Forge Academic Partnership Amid Pandemic

The partnership signing ceremony between the two universities took place via Zoom due to the coronavirus pandemic. "We look forward to the Covid-19 calming down so that we can meet in person, in Rabat and Be’er Sheva. In the meantime, we are delighted that academic collaboration has begun," said the new partners.

As part of this partnership, the two universities are to facilitate scholarly and scientific cooperation through joint research as well as teaching and student mobility in the fields of social and natural sciences, as well as the humanities. Other areas of cooperation: research on the cultural heritage of Moroccan Jews in anthropology, history, sociology and economics. In this sense, a section called "People of the MENA region" (MENA - Middle East and North Africa) is planned.

The two entities will also organize a joint workshop to discuss topics such as spiritualism, agriculture, land tenure, ethnicity and the legacies of the desert kingdom called "Oases in the Middle East and North Africa, an ecological utopia".

Before the UIR, Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) had signed a partnership with the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) on scientific research projects around sustainable development.