New MoU between HIT and Kazan Federal University

Great news to start off the Jewish New Year. A Memorandum of Understanding between HIT and Kazan Federal University (KFU), one of Russia’s leading universities opens the way for major research and academic cooperation.

Photo: Nikita Tokhtasinov

The MOU was exchanged digitally between Prof. Eduard Yakubov, President of HIT and Prof. Ilshat Gafurov, Rector of KFU. Aside from being able to call one of the world’s greatest novelists Leo Tolstoy one of its distinguished alumni, the 216-year old institution KFU is highly ranked on the Times Higher Education scale, and is a pioneer in the fields of organic chemistry, geometry, physics. This natural and physical science bent is joined by foci in such areas as medical research, nano-materials and nano-voltaics, information technology and intelligent systems, management and e-learning/instruction. With 50,000 students and 687 degree programs, KFU is considered one of the top five institutions of higher education in Russia.

The MOU represents yet another milestone in HIT’s rapidly growing repertoire of international collaborations. With 100 active partnerships signed with institutions from over 32 countries around the world, HIT’s strategic plan has placed ‘internationalization’ as one of its top priorities. This global engagement initiative has yielded impressive results in terms of multinational consortia, competitive grants, mobility and exchange.

KFU and HIT share many mutual research and academic interests in the areas of biomedicine, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, tribiology and communication technologies, to name but a few. The prospect of cooperation in the area of digital health, particularly as HIT is the only Israeli institution of higher education to offer this degree program, aroused considerable enthusiasm. Plans call for the creation of joint programing within the Erasmus + framework. HIT and KFU are also eager to develop projects which focus on helping children on the autistic spectrum, a subject that has been actively addressed by HIT’s various design and technology faculties and KFU’s recently opened kindergarten.

The online meeting was led by KFU Rector Gafuroy and HIT Pres. Yakubov.

Joining the HIT President at the meeting was Dr. Refael Barkan, Head of Research, Innovation and International Ventures at HIT and Founder of B.Sc. program in Digital Technologies for Medicine; and Mrs. Tony Levy, ERO and Coordinator of the President’s international initiatives.

Representing KFU additionally were Prof. Timirkhan Alishev, Vice-Rector for International Relations; Prof. Andrey Kiyasov, Director of the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology; Prof. Dmitry Pashin, Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation and Innovation; Prof. Yuri Shtyrlin, Director of the Pharmaceuticals Research and Education Center; Prof. Irina Nigmatullina, Interim Principal of the Kazan University Kindergarten, Institute of Psychology and Education.

During the meeting, Prof. Yakubov spoke about the MOU serving as a stepping stone for the further development of academic cooperation between the two institutions. “We are very proud of this cooperation, due to the prominence and high regard in which KFU is held. I am confident that the many areas and disciplines in which we share interest will serve as a springboard for creative interactions in R&D, curriculum development and competitive research grants."

He also congratulated KFU on its recent success in receiving an international grant for research centers, “It’s a huge accomplishment! I am sure that we can soon expand the scope of our cooperation. With the new peace and friendship accord just recently signed between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, many new opportunities for cooperative partnerships with universities in these oil-rich countries are on the horizon,” concluded Prof. Yakubov.

Dr. Refael Barkan was enthusiastic about the MOU and said that he foresees a great opportunity to leverage HIT’s international cooperation with Russian institutions of higher education in areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and academic programs.

As for the future, in the upcoming days, Dr. Nava Shaked, Head of HIT’s Multi-Disciplinary Department and expert in Human Machine Interaction, has been invited to join a Webinar on Automatic Speech Processing hosted by KFU, where she will speak on intelligent systems for speech processing. KFU will be represented by the Director of the Center for Digital Transformation, Dmitry Chikrin and Chair of the Department of Applied Linguistics, Yelena Gorobets.