Egypt plans first science strategy plan
Egypt is embarking upon its first attempt to create an integrated science system with the drafting of a 12-year strategy. The country's ministries and research institutions have agreed to work together on a number of priorities, including increasing the number of trained scientists in Egypt, awarding science a more prominent role in the country's development, increasing the involvement of women in science, boosting technology transfer, and training science policy advisors. The plan has a budget of around 6.9 billion euro, and is expected to be endorsed by the government in July. The budget requires an increase in government investment in science from 0.9 per cent of GDP to 1 per cent. In order to encourage the private sector to invest more in research, the public funding will be used to set up 'investors' offices' in research institutes. The strategy will see the launch of postgraduate and other training programmes in disciplines such as biotechnology, renewable energy, pharmaceutical science, agriculture, water and information and communication technologies (ICT), according to SciDev.Net. Communicating science to Egypt's citizens is another priority, and is to be tackled by launching new science magazines, establishing new training schemes for journalists, and airing television programmes on science.
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