Syria and Iran have pledged joint funding for research, teaching and data sharing as part of a wider agreement on science and education collaboration.
The arrangement, announced on 30 March, will promote joint projects between universities and facilitate researcher exchanges at postgraduate, doctoral and professor level.
It sets up plans for institutions in the two countries to share research data, and also for Iran to provide assistance in rebuilding Syrian universities that have been affected by the recent crisis, the Syrian ministry of higher education said in a statement.
A student programme will be established to allow PhD and masters students from both Syria and Iran to gain research experience in the other country.
The agreement was signed in Damascus by Mohammad Amer al-Mardini, Syria’s minister of higher education, and Mohammad Farhadi, Iran’s science, research and technology minister.