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New centre to advise Muslim world
on science policy The new centre will help Muslim countries create effective
science policies Wagdy
Sawahel An US$8 million research centre that will help Muslim
countries set up effective science policies and national systems of innovation
will be inaugurated tomorrow (12 July) in Pakistan. The Technology and Innovation Policy Research Centre in
Islamabad is an initiative of COMSTECH, the Organization of the Islamic
Conference's (OIC) committee for scientific cooperation. It will be staffed by scientists and economists with
specialist knowledge of science policy who will provide training courses for
students, government officials and policymakers from OIC countries. The centre will also carry out science and innovation
policy reviews for OIC countries and produce briefing papers for their
policymakers and advisors. Atta-ur-Rahman, Pakistan's minister for higher education
and coordinator-general of COMSTECH, says scientific capacity building in the
Muslim world should be driven by different policy instruments depending on the
specific needs of individual countries and regions. He points out that of the OIC's 57 members, only a few —
including Egypt, Iran, Malaysia and Turkey — have national academies and
research councils that can give their governments scientific advice. Next month (19 August) COMSTECH will launch its Frontier
Technologies Research Center, which will host scientific meetings and workshops
about how biotechnology can be applied to problems of economic importance in
OIC countries. “[The centre] aims to provide Islamic countries’
biotechnologists with a platform where they can share and enhance their
bio-knowledge together and develop collaborative research programmes,” says Atta-ur-Rahman. He says a two-year workshop
programme in nano-medicine, DNA vaccines, gene therapy, industrial
biotechnology and the use of bioinformatics in genomics research has been
already approved. http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=2967&language=1 |
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