An NCFU delegation (Head – Dmitry Bespalov, Rector, NCFU) visited Venezuela to discuss potential bilateral progress in education, research and technology.

Dmitry Bespalov had a meeting with Gabriela Jiménez Ramírez (Vice-President, Venezuela), and the other top officials who attended the meeting were Yelitze Santaella (Minister of Education), Wilmar Alfredo Castro Soteldo (Minister for Productive Agriculture and Lands), and Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov (Russia’s Special and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Venezuela).

The issues discussed embraced a while range of areas – from the promotion of Russian to research and academic mobility projects, as well as special scholarships to be offered to citizens of Venezuela seeking to pursue a degree in Russian, namely, NCFU.

– Our University is paying special attention to the promotion of international academic mobility. And note, please, that the main purpose of our visit here is to expand the connection between Russian and Venezuela in view of the experience that our Federal University has accumulated in areas like agriculture and biotechnology. I am sure that our joint academic and research projects will play an important role in promoting cooperation between our two countries, – Dmitry Bespalov noted.

Following the meeting, a cooperation agreement was signed with the Ministry for Productive Agriculture and Lands of Venezuela, which is aimed at the development of the agri-food sector through research, training, scientific and technical support, as well as the promotion of technologies for high-tech industrial products. The initial stage has already been defined – a number of educational programs in biotechnology, plant and animal genetics, as well as Russian language courses offered to foreign citizens.