Autonomous Palestinian Territories

The cooperation with the Palestinian Territories supports research policy and helps to make use of scientific and technological potentials. It also serves the purpose of aiding scientific diplomacy, enabling science to open up opportunities for exchange and networking between people across state borders in spite of severely difficult political conditions in order to contribute to a stabilisation.

East-Jerusalem

© Susanne Ruppert-Elias / DLR

Funding opportunities

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Political framework

The German Federal Government supports the so-called “Two-State Solution” in the conflict between Israeli and Palestine by intensifying relations with the Palestinian territories. As a result, both countries agreed to expand and add to the bilateral cooperation in education, science and research during a meeting of the German-Palestinian steering committee at ministerial and staff level in 2010. The two ministers signed a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2014 to implement joint activities in education and research.

Highlights of the bilateral cooperation

From Jerusalem to Jülich and back - Joint Master’s and PhD programmes

The two ministries organised a first joint initiative workshop in Ramallah in November 2011 to identify and discuss research priorities of mutual interest. This led to further subject-related institutional partnerships - such as between the Jülich research centre and the Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem.

Since 2012, both sides have actively cooperated in Master’s and PhD science training. The research centre aims to transfer this approach to additional interested Palestinian universities.

Perspectives of a sustainable cooperation

Since a ministerial agreement was signed in early 2014, both sides are making use of the opportunity to intensify the cooperation in education, science and research. In particular, the aim is to promote the mobility of Palestinian students, PhD students and researchers and to provide them with access to international science exchange and networks. One other important objective of the cooperation is to contribute to setting up the necessary research infrastructure at Palestinian universities and research institutions in order to sustainably strengthen and support independent further development.

The future topics of vocational training and employability of graduates and the relationships with the private economy required to achieve this are also relevant. Young Palestinians in particular are forced to adapt to international education and qualification standards due to the limited local employment market, such as a better-paid job with an Israeli employer.

Second joint call 2017

The second joint Palestinian-German call was open from 30 August 2017 to 6 December 2017 and aimed at intensifying cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Germany in the fields of science and research.

Its main goal was to promote joint German-Palestinian mobility projects and establish joint research partnerships in applied research.

The funding measure was part of the German Federal Government's  Strategy for the Internationalisation of Science and Research as well as the BMBF's "International Cooperation" action plan. It was also based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in education, science and research between the BMBF and the Palestinian Authority of 19 March 2014.

In the context of future joint activities and projects, both sides intend to pay special attention to the inclusion and promotion of young researchers.