Université Paris-Saclay welcomes the Palestinian Vice Minister of Higher Education and Research

University Article published on 26 July 2023 , Updated on 27 July 2023

On 12 July 2023, the Deputy Vice-President for Research at Université Paris-Saclay, Prof Michel Guidal, welcomed the Vice Minister of Higher Education and Research of Palestine, Dr Basri Saleh. The visit was also attended by representatives from the Consulate General of France, the Mission of Palestine in France, and lecturers and students from the National University of An Najah.

The Vice Minister's visit to France was part of preparations for a visit by the Palestinian Minister at the end of 2023 or in 2024, and aims to strengthen Franco-Palestinian scientific collaboration and improve professional opportunities for young Palestinian graduates. 

The Vice Minister outlined his Ministry's priorities and praised the emblematic cooperation between Université Paris-Saclay and the National University of An-Najah as part of the European (Erasmus+) International Credit Mobility (ICM) scheme, which has supported more than 120 cross-mobilities between the two institutions, leading to a number of flagship initiatives: 

  • collaboration with CERN (participation of Palestinian students in CERN programmes, and official entry of U. An-Najah into the ATLAS experiment); 
  • the donation to U. An-Najah of a powerful CERN computing cluster, which was installed by engineers at the Laboratory of the Physics of the two Infinities Irène Joliot-Curie (IJCLab – Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Université Paris-Cité) ; 
  • the organisation of the WISHEPP winter school on particle physics, cosmology and detection techniques; 
  • and prospects for joint degrees, etc. 

Research professors and students from the National University of An Najah took part in the discussions with the Minister, celebrating the results achieved and hoping for even greater support from the Palestinian Ministry in achieving these objectives. 

The meeting ended with a presentation on Artificial Intelligence at the Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience (NeuroPSI – CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay), and a discussion on the prospects for future research cooperation initiatives.