On Thursday, December 16, Aleksandr Guliakov, Rector of PSU, had a videoconference with Dr. Ghaleb Awad El Refae, President of Al Ain University. The online meeting was also attended by Viktor Mekhanov, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs of PSU, Gleb Sintsov, Vice-Rector for International Affairs of PSU, Aleksandr Mitroshin, Director of the Medical Institute, Olga Surina, Director of the Institute of Teacher Education, Vitaly Goshulyak, Director of the Institute of Law, Inessa Moiseeva, Dean of the Faculty of General Medicine, Head of the Department of General and Clinical Pharmacology, Lyudmila Fionova, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, Ekaterina Pecherskaya, Head of the Department of Information and Measuring Equipment and Metrology, Ekaterina Reva, Head of the Department of Journalism, Sergey Ivanchin, Head of the International Education Office, Adel Maqbol, Specialist in academic work at the Department of Student Affairs, Institute of International Cooperation.

Al Ain University was represented by Dr. Amer Qasem, Vice President, Dr. Nazih Mallat, Vice President for Accreditation Affairs and Quality Assurance, Dr. Khairi Mustafa, Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Prof. Moustafa Kandeel, Dean of the College of Law, Dr. Emad Mohammad Alghazo, Dean of College of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, Zafar Husain PhD, Dean of College of Business, Dr. Qutaibah Althebyan, Dean of College of Engineering. The coordinating support in the cooperation with Al Ain University was provided by Dr. Bashir Samaha, Chairman of the National Arab-Russian Association, the University's partner for work with students and organizations in the Arab world.

During the negotiations, the universities gave brief presentations about the history of their formation, structure and the current level of development.

“For PSU, cooperation with you, your University is very attractive. Today's meeting confirms that we have many intersection points, we have a sufficient number of similar areas for training specialists, in which academic mobility, scientific and technical cooperation has good prospects. These are pharmacy, journalism, IT, legal and economic specialties. Thank you, colleagues, for your keen interest,” concluded Aleksandr Guliakov during the negotiations.

“I am very happy about our meeting, colleagues, and I thank its organizers. Nowadays, partnership and the desire for cooperation are really appreciated. In addition to the above-mentioned areas of work, I would also emphasize the study of languages and the mutual promotion of cultures. I know that the Russian-Arab Cultural Center has been created at PSU. It would be interesting for us to get acquainted with his activities and contribute to popularizing the Arabic language and culture in Russia, in particular, in Penza. I think that the Russian language will also arouse interest among our students,” said the President of Al Ain University, Dr. Ghaleb Awad El Refae.

As further steps in the development of cooperation, the parties identified work in mini-groups to compare the curricula of the two universities, get acquainted with the material and technical base and develop roadmaps for developing joint work.