The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is to collaborate with the Université Internationale de Rabat (UIR) in Morocco on many areas in research and education, the Israeli university announced on Tuesday.
This news comes after more than a year after the historic signing of the Abraham Accords, where Israel also normalized diplomatic relations with Morocco.
The signing ceremony between the two universities had to be conducted via Zoom due to the current coronavirus pandemic.
"We can't wait for COVID-19 to subside so we can meet in person, both in Rabat and in Beersheba. In the meantime, we are excited that the academic collaboration has begun," said the new partners.
The universities are to facilitate scholarly and scientific cooperation through joint research as well as teaching and student mobility in the areas of Social and Natural Sciences, as well as the Humanities.
In addition, a joint workshop between the two institutions will discuss topics such as spiritualism, agriculture, land ownership, ethnicity, and desert kingdom heritages called "Oasis in the Middle East and Northern Africa, an Ecological Utopia."
Other areas of collaborative study will also include research in Moroccan Jews' cultural heritage in the fields of anthropology, history, sociology, and economics. This will be done under a heading known as "People of the MENA region" (MENA - Middle East and North Africa).
BGU had also initiated joint research and academic collaborations with Morocco’s Mohammed VI Polytechnic University last month.