RSU Signs a Memorandum of Understanding With Ariel University

The MoU will open up cooperation opportunities for students, academic staff, and scientists from both universities and will be signed by RSU Rector Professor Aigars Petersons and the President of Ariel University, Professor Yehuda Shoenfeld.

The cooperation between the two universities began in 2020 when a research project on autoimmune diseases was launched, “Reducing networking gaps between Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) and internationally leading counterparts in viral infection-induced autoimmunity research (VirA)”. The project will continue until December 2023. An international consortium with leading research institutions in immunology, virology, morphology, and clinical data management and modelling from Italy (the University of Ferrara), Germany (Ulm University), and Israel (Sheba Medical Centre) has been established within the framework of the project.

The MoU has been drawn up because both universities see a wide range of opportunities for cooperation beyond autoimmune disease research. Ariel University is the newest university in Israel. It was founded in 2012 and offers programmes in not only medicine and healthcare, but also in engineering, social sciences, and humanities, for example. The university has more than 20 research centres, including the Institute for Personalised and Translational Medicine, the Integrative Brain Science Centre, the Centre for Applied Cancer Research, the Health Promotion and Well-being Research Centre, the Institute for the Study of New Media, Politics and Society, and the Cyber Innovation Centre.

The vision for the cooperation between the two universities is that it takes place in the fields of culture, education, and science, including joint projects between teaching staff and researchers, peer visits, student exchanges, including placements for healthcare students, researcher participation in conferences, as well as exchanging scientific publications and academic information.

RSU has crossed paths with Israel and the country’s academia many times. There are also Israeli students among the many international students at RSU – 59 full-time students from Israel are currently studying in Riga. In 2019, RSU established a clinical training centre at Bar-Ilan University and the Ziv Medical Centre where RSU students have the opportunity to undergo clinical placement.