The university last week signed a cooperation agreement with the Jerusalem College of Engineering. This follows a call made two months ago by 61 Irish academics for Irish universities to cease all cooperation with Israeli universities.

Seven NUI Maynooth academics were amongst those who made the call.

The statement issued by the Irish academics caused huge controversy in Israel, and led to one Israeli academic reporting the signatories to the European Union.

According to Prof Ezra Zeheb, who heads the electronic engineering department at the college, the calls for a boycott did not affect plans to forge official links between the two universities, although he did admit that "the timing is difficult" for Maynooth due to the controversy.

However, Steve Coleman, one of the Maynoothbased signatories, said that he did not object to the Hamilton Institute forging links with the Jerusalem college. According to Coleman, the purpose of the boycott statement was to provoke debate surrounding the issue. It was aimed at specific EU-funded programmes rather than individual initiatives by universities, he added.

The statement calling for a boycott was signed by 61 academics. University College Cork provided the largest number of signatories, with 13 Cork academics signing the document. Eleven of the signatories were based in TCD, while Maynooth and UCD provided seven each.