Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General of SESRIC, attended the “Economic Development through Science and Technology” conference organized by Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) initiative and participated the Panel Discussion "Creating a Favorable Innovation Environment" as a panelist, on 16-17th June 2011, in Rabat, the Kingdom of Morocco.

The conference opened with welcome speeches of Dr. Rodney Nichols, CRDF Global Board of Directors, President Emeritus, New York Academy of Sciences; Mr. Ahmed Akhchichine, Minister, Ministry of National Education, and Dr. Omar Fassi Fehri, Secretary General, Hasan II Academy of Science & Technology.

Also honorable speakers Mr. Ahmed Réda Chami, Minister, Ministry of Industry, Trade and New Technologies; and Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs, Department of State, United States also delivered their speeches at the opening of the conference.

During the Panel on “Creating a Favorable Innovation Environment”, Dr. Alpay addressed the participants of the panel. The Panel Discussion was moderated by Dr. Rodney Nichols, and other panelists were Dr. Abdelali Haoudi, Vice President of Research, Qatar Foundation; Dr. Norhalim Yunus, CEO, Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC).

The Panel focused on practical policy changes that can be made in the short to medium term with a specific emphasize on the types of internal policy changes, research and development institutions can make and incentives that lower-level governments- city, municipal, or regional- can develop to create a more favorable innovation environment, especially for entrepreneurs.

In his speech, Dr. Alpay firstly focused on the science and technology and innovation indicators such as number of scientific publications, R&D expenditure, Human Resources and R&D patents and analyzed the current situation in the OIC Member Countries in the light of these indicators. Dr. Alpay then mentioned some of the recent activities of SESRIC in promoting science and technology in OIC member countries. In this context, Dr. Alpay also informed participants about the Atlas of Innovation Project which is carried out by SESRIC together with the Royal Society. And finally he made a brief presentation on recent changes in Turkey towards creating a favorable environment for innovation.

Links

Official conference webpage: http://gist.crdfglobal.org/about-gist/events/2011/06/10/economic

Official GIST webpage: http://gist.crdfglobal.org/

Documents

Agenda of the Meeting

Photos