Events 2009

4th African Ministerial Council for Science and Technology (AMCOST)

5-12 December - Together with the Heads of State of the African Union, AMCOST is the highest-decision making body on science and technology in Africa. UNESCO is the only UN body to be nominated to AMCOST. For details, click here or contact the UNESCO focal point.

R&D Management for High Level Decision-Makers

16–20 November - The Centre for South-South Cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation (ISTIC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is organizing a training workshop on R&D Management for High Level Decision-Makers in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The workshop is being run in cooperation with the Korean Institute for Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning. This follows an earlier international training workshop on Assessing Industrial Needs to Help Develop a Sustainable and Productive Science and Technology Policy, in Kuala Lumpur from 22 to 26 June 2009. ISTIC was launched in May 2008 under the auspices of UNESCO. More on ISTIC.

Science and Technology Park Governance

11–14 November - Every year, international training workshops are run by UNESCO in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, in close cooperation with the World Technopolis Association. The one this month will be on the theme of Science Park and Technology Business Incubator Governance. More on science parks.

World science day

10 November - World Science Day for Peace and Development. Around the world, people are encouraged to join in the celebration. Click here to download or print the poster for your own use and to learn about some of this year's events.

Online course development for e-learning in Iraq

8-10 Novembre - A training workshop in online course development is being run by UNESCO in Amman (Jordan) for 18 teachers from the Universities of Baghdad, Basra and Salahaddin and two representatives of the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The three universities are the first in Iraq to join the Avicenna Virtual Campus, an international e-learning network established by UNESCO. (More)

World Science Forum

5–7 November - The forum will be commemorating the 10th anniversary of the World Conference on Science organized by UNESCO and the International Council for Science in Budapest (Hungary) in 1999. For details, visit the website or contact the co-ordinator at UNESCO.

Meeting of UN Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM)

4-7 November - The RCM Secretariat coordinates UN activities in Africa. It reports on the progress of activities carried out by the UN cluster to the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. The RCM is next meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. UNESCO will be represented at the meeting, in its capacity as coordinator of the UN Science and Technology Cluster in support of implementation of Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action. For details, click here or contact the UNESCO focal point.

Arab women in science and technology: empowerment for the development of the Arab world

28-30 September - The Arab Science & Technology Foundation is organizing a conference on the theme of empowering women in science and technology in the Arab world, in cooperation with the Dubai Business Women’s Council. The conference is being organized in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) in collaboration with UNESCO, ISESCO and others. For details, write to the organizers or go to the website.
Contact the focal point at UNESCO.
Go to UNESCO’s page on Gender issues
Read about the L’Oréal-UNESCO Prize for Women in Science

Science, technology and innovation policies for Latin America and the Caribbean: towards a new social contract for science

23-25 September - This second Latin American and Caribbean Forum plans to provide a contribution to the World Science Forum taking place in November this year. The Latin American and Caribbean forum will be taking place in Buenos Aires and is sponsored by the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The forum was originally planned for 5-7 August but has since been postponed to 23-25 September. For details, contact UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean or visit the website.

Science and technology park development

6-9 July - National training workshop in Abuja, Nigeria. This follows a similar workshop in Oran, Algeria, from 22 to 25 June this year. Contact the focal point. Go to the website.

STI policy review for East and North Africa

30 March – 3 April
Fourteen countries from the sub-region have been invited to the five-day capacity-building workshop, which will begin with the exchange of experiences and lessons learnt in conducting STI policy reviews, in the company of experts. Given the importance of STI statistics and indicators for effective science policy reviews and formulation, the following two days will be devoted to a training exercise on S&T statistics and indicators. The meeting will end with a scientific forum for parliamentarians from the sub-region to raise awareness of the role STI will play in achieving sustainable development in Africa. The workshop is organized by UNESCO’s Division for Science Policy and Sustainable Development, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, African Union/New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the Kenya Ministry for Higher Education, Science and Technology. The fourteen countries concerned by the workshop are Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Seychelles, Comoros, Madagascar, Egypt and Libya.

Click here for details.
Contact the focal point.
Read about a similar meeting organized last year for the countries of the Southern African Development Community.

Archaeomap Forum

24-27 March - UNESCO’s Division of Science Policy and Sustainable Development is organizing an international forum to disseminate the information amassed over the past year by the Archaeological Management Policies (Archaeomap) project, via a symposium and training workshop. International and national experts in natural, cultural and underwater heritage of the Mediterranean will participate in the forum. In the mid-term assessment of the Archaeomap project, the International Committee notes that that the Mediterranean constitutes in their minds one of the most attractive fields of application, not only for science policies to protect coastal archaeological sites from human-induced damage but also for precise studies to develop a strategy for reducing disaster risk for world heritage properties. They observe that the Mediterranean basin is ‘a highly active geological puzzle where seismic, volcanic and tsunami activities are particularly abundant and relatively well recorded.’ Read the agenda. (More)