Success of the second Franco-Iranian meetings on academic and scientific cooperation

On June 20^th and 21^st 2018, France hosted the second Franco-Iranian meetings on academic and scientific cooperation. This event followed the first meetings organized in December 2016 in Teheran. About 40 French higher education institutions had participated in the event and among the 19 agreements that were signed, almost 10 had involved the French schools of engineering.
The success of the first edition was confirmed in 2018. The Iranian delegation, led by Mr. Mansour Gholami, Iranian Minister for Science, Research and Technology, was made up of about 20 University Presidents and Directors of research centers, and high-level representatives from Iranian Ministries for Foreign Affairs and Health.
During the meetings, the official signature of the November 2017 joint Committee minutes’ and the signature of new cooperation agreements between Paris-Saclay University and Sharif University of Technology, the French engineering schools of ParisTech and Elm-o-Sanat University of Iran, and Lumière Lyon 2 University and University of Teheran, showed the common interest of the French and Iranian higher education community to strengthen the academic and scientific cooperation. About 15 French schools of engineering will benefit from these new agreements to develop their cooperation and launch new projects with Iranian universities.
During the first morning session of June 19^th, various speakers from ministries and higher education institutions presented an overview and common and ambitious prospects of the Franco-Iranian academic and scientific cooperation. CDEFI, represented by its Vice-President, Mrs. Elisabeth Crépon, reminded the success of the first meetings in 2016 for the French schools of engineering and renewed its support to the objectives of the event: strengthening the relationships between higher education institutions and research teams from both countries, fostering student mobility, particularly at PhD level, and developing new common projects as joint diplomas and joint supervision of thesis. To this end, during one session focused on engineering, Iranian and French participants showed their interest to develop student mobility at PhD level and joint supervision thesis.
 
The afternoon of June 19^th and the day of June 20^th were devoted to institutional meetings and visits (the French Center of Synchrotron Radiation SOLEIL, the Institute of Global Physics in Paris, etc.)
After a bilateral meeting between Mr. Mansour Gholami and Mrs. Frédérique Vidal, French Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, a reception organized at Quai d’Orsay ended the event.