A high-level academic delegation from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel, headed by its president, Daniel Chamovitz, will arrive in Ecuador next Saturday, February 4, for a visit that will seek to promote and concretize academic cooperation with the San Francisco de Quito University (USFQ).
The visit responds to the signing in May 2022 of a memorandum of understanding and cooperation between said university (known as BGU, for its acronym in English) and USFQ, within the framework of the visit that President Guillermo Lasso made to Israel, the first of an Ecuadorian head of state to this country.
“We hope to partner with academic entities in Ecuador, as we have already done with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, to continue deepening our relationships in South America,” says Chamovitz, who recalls that “the experience of the Ben-Gurion University is valuable for the world”.
“More than 50 years of environmental research have uniquely positioned us to provide solutions to the most pressing questions,” he says.
With its central campus in the city of Beer Sheva, in the Negev desert (southern Israel), the BGU has nearly 20,000 students and 800 professors and researchers in its six faculties and twelve schools. It has two other campuses—one in the city of Eilat, on the Red Sea, and another in Sde Boker, in the heart of the desert—as well as six affiliated medical centers.
The BGU was founded in 1969 as part of Israel’s strategy to conquer the desert, and has since become the fastest growing research center in Israel and the most experienced in the full range of environmental sciences.
In 2021, the Israeli university created the Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Sustainability and Climate Change, directed by Yaron Ziv, to adopt a multidisciplinary approach that combines research efforts in different fields and offers answers to the primary and secondary effects of these changes, including the scarcity of water and food, the loss of biodiversity, the unequal distribution of natural resources, pollution and the need to develop sustainable energy sources.
Promoter of the cooperation project with USFQ, the new school is transferring to Ecuador this February experts in biodiversity, marine biology, chemistry, biotechnology, microbiology, engineering, neurology, life sciences, oceanography, biomedicine, geoinformatics and computer science , among others.
On Monday the 6th, the delegation will begin its work schedule with a visit to the USFQ headquarters in Cumbayá, on the outskirts of the Ecuadorian capital. Afterwards, he will travel to the Galapagos archipelago, some 1,000 kilometers west of the mainland coast, to get a closer look at the reality of these unique islands due to their biodiversity, and will visit the USFQ Galapagos Scientific Center in San Cristóbal.
They will also travel to Santa Cruz Island to learn about the Charles Darwin Foundation, among other points on the itinerary of this visit, which will conclude on Saturday the 11th. A part of the BGU delegation will remain in the country for an additional week to visit the Station of Tiputini Biodiversity (TBS), in the Amazon. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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