Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met this morning at the Maximos Mansion with the President of Yale University, Maurie McInnis, and the Rector of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Gerasimos Siasos, on the occasion of the dual Master’s degree to be offered by the two Universities entitled ‘Global Environmental Sciences and Public Health’. The programme will receive funding through the Recovery and Resilience Fund, supporting its implementation and long-term impact.
During the meeting, the participants highlighted the excellent cooperation that has developed between the two Universities and discussed the possibility of further strengthening it.
The Prime Minister emphasized his Government’s strong commitment to boosting the international presence of public Universities and building partnerships with leading Institutions worldwide.
The dual Master’s Programme is part of a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Yale University and the University of Athens back in 2021. Within this context, participants discussed the possibility of creating a research centre of excellence in Attica to facilitate deeper academic collaboration between the two Institutions.
In opening the meeting, Prime Minister Mitsotakis said: ‘It is a real pleasure to be able to welcome you to Athens, Ms President. And, also officially congratulations on your role and on a very impressive commencement speech, which I had an opportunity to listen to at a ceremony that was truly very moving and very grandiose and also very traditional.
I am very happy that you are here and I am particularly happy about the fact that this partnership between Yale and the University of Athens is really flourishing, with our first postgraduate degree being ready, but also with other very interesting projects in the pipeline. For us it is particularly important to foster such partnerships between our public Universities and leading international academic Institutions.
We are also in the process of establishing nonprofit private Universities in Greece. Just recently, a few days ago, the legislation that we passed was upheld by our Council of State. But for me the priority was always to make sure that our public Universities, where, at the end of the day, almost all Greek students will study, are open and foster these kind of collaborations.
So, I am very happy about the fact that this programme is taking off and very eager to also hear your ideas about how we could further strengthen this partnership’.
For his part, the Rector of NKUA, Gerasimos Siasos, said: ‘It is a great honour for us to welcome you, to have this collaboration with the leading Institution, Yale University. It is a great honour to have the new President here and the former President in our University. We had a fruitful discussion for over five or six hours yesterday in our University. I would also like to thank Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, for the enormous support of this programme’.
The President of Yale University, Maurie McInnis, noted: ‘Thank you so much, Prime Minister. I could not be more honoured to be here. Yale University is so long committed to Hellenic Studies, Classical Studies. And now this opportunity to develop a programme with the University of Athens, deepening partnerships, particularly here around public health and environmental studies, is such a great opportunity for our University to deepen our commitment to Greece and we are very excited for this partnership.
And so appreciative of the support from your Government and from the University of Athens for a partnership that we know will grow over the years. So, thank you so much’.
Present at the meeting, on the part of the Greek Government were, the Minister of Education, Religious Affairs, and Sports, Sofia Zacharaki, the Minister of State, Akis Skertsos, and the Deputy Minister for Higher Education at the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs, and Sports, Nikos Papaioannou. Also in attendance were the Professor at Yale School of Public Health, Vasilis Vasiliou, the Alternate Chair of the NKUA’s Administration Council, Professor Nikolaos Thomaidis, and the President of Yale Club of Greece, Kyriacos Sabatakakis.
The session has ended for security reasons.