From the 12th to 17th of December, the Cyprus Institute (CyI) hosted a winter school on Geosciences for Masters’ students from the University of Lebanon, taught by Professors from France. The event was supported by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie as well as the French Institute in Cyprus and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). The 24 students were taught by lecturers from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie (University of Lorraine, France), as well as the Institut Français de Pétrole et d’Energies Nouvelles. After one week of lessons, they were taken on a one-day field trip by Prof. Adrianna Bruggeman of the Cyprus Institute to learn more about the work of the Institute on water resource management.

During the winter school, a high level delegation from Lebanon visited the Cyprus Institute to explore the possibility to collaborate in the creation of a regional Masters’ programme on Geosciences, which would bring together French Universities, the Lebanese University, as well as Cypriot educational institutions such as the Cyprus Institute.

When meeting with the Lebanese delegation, which included the Chairman of the Board of the Lebanese Petroleum Administration, a representative from the Lebanese National Research Centre (CNRS) and the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lebanon, it was agreed to reinforce Cypriot-Lebanese academic cooperation through further joint courses, researcher and student exchanges, and other collaborative projects.

The President of the Cyprus Institute, Prof. Costas N. Papanicolas, stated after the meeting that “this type of cooperation is important for our Institute, since it is very much in line with our vision to be a bridge between the European Research Area and academic partners in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Region”.