DCU welcomes academics from Gaza as part of the Erasmus+ project i-Care
The School of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering is hosting ten visiting academics from Gaza as part of the EU Erasmus+ project i-Care, which is running from July 1st to 12th.
i-CARE (Increasing the Conformance of Academia towards Rehabilitation Engineering) is an EU comission funded Erasmus+ project, the goal of which is to develop the rehabilitation engineering and education knowledge, skills, and abilities of academic staff in a number of Palestinian partner universities and institutions in collaboration with EU partners.
As part of the i-CARE project, DCU is delivering a training programme to transfer knowledge and expertise to the visiting Palestinian Academics. Over the course of the two week programme, there are a number of sessions with DCU staff and other Irish institutions on topics relating to Rehabilitation Engineering (Consultation skills, Physical disabilities, Biomechanics, Robotics/Exoskeletons) and Education (Curricula Development, Problem Based Learning), as well as site visits to UCD, Enable Ireland and Clontarf Hospital.
Dr. Ahmed Issa, the project coordinator said:
“The training mission at DCU is part of i-CARE project activities aimed at enahancing the knowledge and capacity of Palestinian academics related to the field of Rehabilitation Engineering and Curricula Development Methods.
I particularly want to thank Prof. Dermot Brabazon, DCU’s project coordinator and Dr. Eanna McCarthy the assistant project coordinator for their efforts in organizing the training program and ensuring its success.”
Dr. Taleb Al Rayyes, an academic from Palestine said:
“I’m delighted with the training program in DCU. The lectures and field visits contained vital and new knowledge for us delivered by experts in the fields of medical engineering and physiotherapy.”
About i-CARE
The i-CARE Project is funded under the European Commission - Erasmus+ programme for three years (2017-2020). The project team is formed from a collaborative partnership among six universities and two associations, four from Palestine and four from Europe, who believe strongly in the power of education and innovation to transform lives.
The four Palestinian consortium members are AL Azhar University – Gaza, which is the leader of the project, the Islamic University of Gaza, University College of Applied Sciences, and El Wafa Medical of Rehabilitation Hospital. This consortium works closely with European collaborators which are Dublin City University in Ireland, University Rehabilitation Institute - Republic of Slovenia in Slovenia, "Angel Kanchev" University of Ruse in Bulgaria and Bulgarian Association for Transfer of Technology and Innovation- BATTI in Bulgaria.