Visitors from the University of Babylon strengthen academic partnerships

The University of Northampton was pleased to welcome two visitors from the University of Babylon to discuss and evaluate the partnership between the two institutions.

Dr Tawfiq, the Dean of the IT College and Dr Ameen, the Dean of the Nursing College arrived in Northampton on Thursday 20 August and attended various meetings with academics of both the School of Science and Technology and the School of Health. They also met the Vice Chancellor, Professor Nick Petford  on Tuesday 25, who kindly invited them to take part in the University’s 10th anniversary celebrations and the afternoon tea!

Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz from the School of Science and Technology, commented: “Our partnership with University of Babylon is growing rapidly, for not only undergraduate study, but also for research and staff developments. We have more than 15 research students and have run staff development workshops for more than 25 academics from University of Babylon over the last two academic years. The partnership is being further developed this year to include Nursing as well as Computing.

The first cohort of students from Babylon will graduate from the University of Northampton in BSc/BEng Computing in July 2016 and have guaranteed employment when they return to Iraq. Iraq is facing times of financial and economic hardship at the moment, but the government remain committed to investing into this important partnership over the coming years. We also discussed to prepare for the 3+1+1 programme for Computing for the September 2016 intake, as University of Babylon students will study three years at their own university and then join Northampton to study for the final year degree and MSc as well.

The School of Health is ready to receive the first cohort of nursing students in September and will arrange a staff development for two weeks for up to four University of Babylon staff in February 2016.”