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March 21, 2007
Wagdy Sawahel,
SciDev.Net
Iran has agreed a science cooperation plan with Syria, and will
spearheaded a network to strengthen research capacity in
biotechnology in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The plan was signed by Syria's prime minister Mohammad Naji Otri
and Iranian vice president Parviz Davoudi at the Syrian-Iranian
Economic Cooperation Commission meeting in Tehran, Iran last
week (12–14 March).
It highlights various scientific fields for collaboration
including medical research, industrial production, energy,
petrochemical research, agriculture, environmental research,
water and sewage, higher education, and information and
communication technology.
Iran will set up a centre to equip Syrian trainers teaching
technical and scientific research skills to Syrian scientists
and technicians in the agreed fields of cooperation.
Iran is also spearheading an agricultural biotechnology
network to connect national biotechnology institutes,
researchers, scientists, engineers, and policy-makers from
member countries of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO)
and promote the continuous exchange of knowledge and research
results.
The network was approved at a two-day agriculture meeting for
ECO member states — Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyz, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan — also held in Tehran this month (5-6 March).
The network will set up a website and establish a biotechnology
database listing institutions, scientists and their respective
capabilities, and research programmes. It will also launch a
public awareness programme for biotechnology.
It will be coordinated by the
Agricultural
Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran, which will provide
training, consultancy and laboratory facilities for joint
research activities.
Nazar Mohammad Halim, of the faculty of science of Kabul
University, Afghanistan, welcomed the network.
"It will enhance the capacity of ECO's member states in
agricultural biotechnology research and development to face the
combined regional agricultural challenges of reduced water
availability, soil degradation, and rapidly increasing pressure
of disease and pests," Halim told SciDev.Net.
Fredun Hojabri, founding president of Sharif University of
Technology Association, a global organisation for alumni of
Iran's top scientific university, emphasised that the network
would benefit the region.
"I am very pleased to see that the scientific cooperation
between Iran and its neighbouring countries is increasing," he
told SciDev.Net. |
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