Saudi Cultural Bureau in Britain (SACB) and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have agreed to allocate five annual seats for the Saudi students in medicine and dentistry on their PMDF course start as of 2018/2019, and successful candidates from this course will progress to QMUL MBBS and BDS degree. SACB shall coordinate with the Saudi institutions to fill these places with the candidates to benefit from them. This agreement came as a result of the ongoing talks and understandings between Saudi Cultural Bureau in Britain and British universities, the cultural attaché Dr Abdulaziz bin Ali Almagushi early this week visited Bart and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry which is part of the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). This visit came after preliminary discussions between Professor Fortune and the Academic, the QMUL visit by Dr Almagushi was intended to agree on the final Terms and Conditions of a MoU between SACB for the admission of Saudi undergraduate students into QMUL's Pre-Medical and Dental Foundation (PMDF) course as a precursor to their MBBS and BDS degree. Dr Almagushi also took the opportunity to invite QMUL to strengthen their partnership with SACB and Saudi universities in light of the increased opportunities that are arising from the Saudi 2030 Vision master strategic Development Plan. In particular he stated he wanted to see more Joint PhD supervision and research collaborations between QMUL and Saudi Universities. He proposed the idea of University Twinning between QMUL and specific Saudi Universities such as KAUST and KAU. He also mentioned that the new Saudi universities are also in need of capacity building. QMUL responded positively to the suggestion and stated they would seriously consider this prospect and would be happy to collaborate with SACB to achieve this objective. They pointed out that within their 5 Research Institutes and their Institute of Education they are already heavily involved in cutting edge research in Europe in Cardio-vascular and Cancer research. They are in the planning stage of doubling the capacity of their Life Science Research Institute which focuses on Trauma, Population Health, Internal metabolism which includes diabetes. Indeed these are research areas which are of high priority to Saudi Arabia. Professor Fortune who was instrumental in organising the visit at QMUL agrees to continue working in close collaboration with SACB to achieve the objectives set during the meeting. Dr Almagushi thanks QMUL for hosting the visit and for their enthusiasm to collaborate with SACB and Saudi Universities.
