Morocco’s UM6P and Israel’s Ben Gurion University Partner on Sustainability Research

This collaboration, one of the first formalized between Moroccan and Israeli universities, will focus on sustainability topics applied to agriculture, water, energy and ecological restoration.

"We are convinced that the pooling of the skills of the scientific and technological institutions of the two countries will have a major impact on populations at the local and regional levels. UM6P and BGU consider scientific research as a key element of development, particularly in terms of sustainability. That is why we have identified this subject as a first step in our collaboration," said Hicham El Habti, President of UM6P.

For his part, Daniel Chamovitz, President of Ben Gurion University, stressed that "BGU and UM6P have a lot in common, whether it’s their arid geographic environment or their focus on applied research and innovative teaching methods. The two universities are well positioned to collaborate on projects in the field of sustainable development and climate change. They are committed to developing in a ’green’ environment, and both are internationally oriented, in order to contribute to our regions, our countries and the world."

It should be noted that the Israeli Ben Gurion University of the Negev has accumulated 50 years of research experience in the fields of sustainability and climate change. UM6P, for its part, has placed this subject at the top of its research and education programs, within its Green Tech Institute (GTI) launched last year and its School of Agricultural, Fertilization and Environmental Sciences (ESAFE), launched in 2015.

This partnership is supported by two international companies, OCP (Morocco) and ICL (Israel). The signing of the corresponding agreement protocol is scheduled for mid-October.