On the occasion of the 30th meeting of the Board of Governors, the Director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, Marco Riccardo Rusconi, visited the Trieste headquarters of the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology – ICGEB, the organization of the United Nations System and center of excellence for research and training,
The meeting, which was attended by the ICGEB General Director, Lawrence Banks, and Alessandro Garbellini, head of the Office for Multilateral Scientific Cooperation and Intellectual Property – General Directorate for the promotion of the MAECI Country System, as well as member of the board ICGEB, was the opportunity to delve deeper into the progress of the “BIOTECHNET – Enhancing biotechnology know-how in the Horn of Africa” project.
The initiative, financed by AICS, is part of the support for tertiary education in Ethiopia and Djibouti and it will allow researchers from the two countries to benefit from a privileged path of participation in ICGEB training, research and funding programmes. Since November 2021, BIOTECHNET has awarded 9 scholarships for three-year doctoral courses and 12 short-term scholarships for training and research at the ICGEB laboratories in Trieste, Delhi and Cape Town. Several capacity building activities involving around 300 participants were organised, with 2 workshops on bioinformatics and biostatistics and a series of online seminars relating to complementary skills and soft skills for local students and researchers. Thanks to travel grants, 5 researchers participated in international conferences to which they would not otherwise have had access and which represent important opportunities for learning, scientific exchange and networking.
“This project supported by the Italian Cooperation has the fundamental characteristic of a long-term impact in the countries involved in terms of strengthening research capacities in biotechnological areas, especially for the positive return obtained at a local and regional level,” said Director Rusconi. “However, we must encourage female participation with specific measures that concretely impact the gender gap in this sector.”
