The President of Beirut Arab University Professor Amr Galal El Adawi participated as a Speaker at the MENA Innovation 2019 that was held at Muscat-Oman.
His speech was delivered through a panel discussion under the title of
“Transformation through Critical Thinking in Education & Scientific Research”.
Prof. El Adawi focused in his speech the importance of creativity and critical thinking as they are the core elements in developing the student’s skills in education.
Creativity is the key to success not only for students but also for the community at large. At BAU, the following approaches are applied to facilitate students’ creativity: Real-life scenarios, Independent learning, Problem-solving activities, Problem-based learning and Debates.
The employment of creativity and critical thinking in the teaching-learning process allows the implementation of a research culture throughout the undergraduate study period. Furthermore, establishing Junior Research Teams in all BAU disciplines facilitates the instilling of research skills in our students. The Junior Research Teams activities allow students to conduct experimental research, write, review articles, publish in international journals and participate in conferences by submitting either oral presentations or posters.
BAU President stated that the Community engagement enriches critical thinking and research, and BAU always emphasizes on community problems through its researchers whether through academic staff or junior graduate students or junior researchers addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which effect every part of the community to invent strong ties between them.
He mentioned that BAU assesses the current state of regional scientific corporation among MENA Countries through collaboration based on international educational projects such as the TEMPES and ERASMUS projects that were founded to serve the scientific research in order to attract funds and expanding scientific collaboration relevant to different disciplines in research. However, BAU is committed to providing high quality education, conducting high quality research and offering high quality community service. The academic staff member’s effort is distributed among education, research and community service taking into consideration the balance between scientific research, the educational process and community service.
BAU facilitates international collaboration in research projects and joint programs in some disciplines with the UK, Italy and John Hopkins University, thus exposing young researchers to different international schools of research. It provides a simulative research environment to its community and recognizes the importance of joint research by highlighting the research findings that could only be achieved through international collaboration, in addition to multi-disciplinary research conducted in collaboration with international universities.
BAU established four scientific journals entitled Health and Wellbeing Society, Culture and Human Behavior, Science and Technology, and Creative Sustainable Development which are included in Elsevier, in addition to the Architecture and Planning Journal and Journal of Legal Studies. Each journal has its International Standard Serial Number (ISSN).
In his discussion, Prof. Amr Galal El Adawi discussed the community engagement in enriching critical thinking and research through various community problems based on its various disciplines. He mentioned several ways BAU implement this issue through the following points:
1- The medical sector offers solutions for some medical problems and conducts co-research activities with the health care staff members at the various hospitals in Lebanon.
2- The Faculty of Engineering addresses community needs through implementing projects that deal with infrastructure and other issues relevant to the municipalities in Lebanon. The faculty also collaborates with some organizations related to the Lebanese industrial sector.
3- The Faculty of Architecture- Design and Built Environment employs critical thinking in finding better solutions for sustainable development.
4- The Faculty of Science applies critical thinking in finding solutions for developing methods of water analysis.
5- The Faculty of Human Sciences-Department of Psychology uses critical thinking in the analysis of psychological problems and disorders and selecting the right measure or scale for psychological counselling. This is applied at hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centers and schools for special needs.
As for scientific research, some disciplines at BAU collaborate with the Research Center for Environment and Development at BAU pertaining to community research projects, some of which are funded by national and international organizations. Also, an Agreement of Cooperation was also signed between the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) and BAU aiming for funding research projects based on community needs.
According to the latest release of the global ranking body, U-multi rank, BAU claimed its position as one of the top 25 performing universities on the indicator (International joint publications), and has at least 75% of its publications in collaboration with coauthors based internationally.
Beirut Arab University has committed itself to creating a cultural and a scientific environment that has strong ties with all aspects of the Lebanese Society.
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