STI Policies Tunisia

Professor Jelel Ezzine, President of the Tunisian Association for the Advancement of Science, Technology and Innovation (TAASTI), Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis (ENIT), University of Tunis El-Manar (UTM), has invited the Research Group on African Development Perspectives Bremen to cooperate on the development of a Master Degree Programme in Engineering and Technology Policy (ETP) and on the establishment of an African Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy Institute as well as on the creation of a Pan-African Innovation Ecosystem (PAIES). Tunisia's success of its economic transformation process is dependent on progress in making STI a major force of growth and development.

A Fact Finding Mission to Tunisia will take place in November 2014. Participants are three members of the Research Group on African Development Perspectives Bremen (Professor Hans-Heinrich Bass, Bremen; Professor Achim Gutowski, Hamburg; and Professor Karl Wohlmuth, Bremen) and from the Cultural Sciences Professor Dr. Cordula Weisskoeppel, University of Bremen. Also two young scientists from the University of Applied Sciences Bremen (from a research working group of Professor Bass) will participate as members of the team. The Fact Finding Mission will give the opportunity to study Tunisia's National Innovation System, to discuss with representatives of Tunisian government institutions and of Higher Education and STI institutions. There will also be time to discuss about the future cooperation with Professor Ezzine and his team. This first phase of the cooperation is financed by the DAAD. Professor Bass, University of Applied Sciences Bremen,  was the main applicant.  Further already scheduled programme components for 2015 are a STII Summer School in Bremen and a STII Research Conference in Tunis.