On July 2, 2017, Dr. Arabkheradmand, TUMS Vice-Chancellor for Global Strategies and International Affairs, had a meeting with Dr. Riyadh Qashi, representative of Leipzig University as the European coordinator of OPATEL Project. At this meeting, some facts and figures were provided by Dr. Qashi regarding the Online Platform for Academic Teaching and Learning in Iran and Iraq (OPATEL). He also added some explanation about funding regulations of this program. Furthermore, TUMS officials emphasized the importance of OPATEL and stated that the outcome of this project will benefit a grand number of educational institutes. 

Relatively, A few workshops on Eu-Iran scientific-research cooperation were held by the effort of European Union and Iranian officials workgroup of scientific collaborations at Negarestan Garden, Tehran, Iran on July 3-4, 2017. This event was held with the presence of representatives from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), University of Torbat-e Heydarieh (UTH) and Sanandaj Branch, Islamic Azad University (IAUSDJ) as the Iranian partners and also Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK) as the coordinator of OPATEL program.

Common interest subjects such as hygiene and education, technology and innovation, and academic cooperation for the purpose of student exchange were discussed in the workshops. Potential fields of collaboration in Iran’s 2020 perspective and Erasmus Plus programs were also among the discussed issues between two parties.

At this event, it was declared that appropriate dissemination of information to the universities regarding EU-Iran collaboration is of high importance in order to develop this contribution more.