Honorary Heydar Aliyev Award for Excellence in Academic Work established at the University of Patras.

On the 3rd of April the Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mr. Rahman Mustafayev paid a visit to the University of Patras (UoP) and met with the Rector of the University professor George Panayiotakis. During the meeting the prospects of establishing scientific and educational cooperation between UoP and appropriate university from Azerbaijan have been discussed. Referring to the establishment of the Heydar Aliyev Award for Excellence in Academic Work Impacting on Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan-Greece relations for the students of UoP, Mr. Panayiotakis emphasized that this project is a great start towards developing meaningful and productive relations with tangible results.

The target of this project, which was initiated by the Embassy and has been supported by the Rector of UoP, is to provide scientific support to the development of the relations between two countries in the areas of political and commercial cooperation, investment, energy and environment, culture, science and education, as well as to promote better understanding of history, culture, foreign and internal policy of the Republic of Azerbaijan among Greek students and scientific communities. A honorary Heydar Aliyev Award for Excellence in Academic Work Impacting on Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani-Greek relations will be open to students of the UoP in both postgraduate and undergraduate programs.

The Award will be presented annually to students who will do the best scientific works that will target Azerbaijan (foreign policy, energy diplomacy, culture etc.) and Azerbaijan-Greece business, trade, energy and commercial inter-related sectors.

This year scientific works will be focused on the following topics:

1. Modern history of Azerbaijan,
2. Foreign policy of Azerbaijan. Political relations between Azerbaijan and Greece,
3. Energy strategy of Azerbaijan and its role in providing energy security of Europe,
4. The prospects of bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, industry and investments,
5. The prospects of bilateral cooperation in the fields of communications, information and new technology,
6. The prospects of bilateral cooperation in the fields of culture, education and science;
7. Azerbaijan and Greece: historical and cultural intersections.

The same day Ambassador R. Mustafayev met with the students, who have expressed an interest to participate in this competition and officially launched the project. The results of the competition for the Heydar Aliyev Award will be summarized at the beginning of September 2012.