X-RAY BENEFITS ON PLANT MICRO-NUTRIENT ANALYSIS

X-RAY BENEFITS ON PLANT MICRO-NUTRIENT ANALYSIS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good afternoon from Manila!

Here’s a good news concerning XRay benefits on plant micro-nutrient analysis coming from Africa. Researchers in Rwanda are very particular about the potential benefits of XRay applications, so this development adds more points towards brightening the image of Rwanda as its old ethnic violence and purges must be expunged with good news.

Not only can XRay determine to the minutest details the micro-nutrient composition of plants, eg. mineral content of leaves, beans, fruits, etc. XRay application, as it was found out, could induce growth of plants as a whole, leading the increase in the micro-nutrients available in them.

The gladdening news is shown below.

[Philippines, 07 April 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/health/nutrition/news/x-ray-technology-harnessed-to-grow-more-nutritious-crops.html

X-ray technology harnessed to grow more nutritious crops

Aimable Twahirwa

5 April 2012 | EN | ES

[KIGALI] Agricultural researchers in Rwanda have adapted a technology widely used in the mining sector to analyse the mineral content of food crops such as beans and maize, with a view to developing more nutritious crops.

The team, from the Rwandan Agricultural Board (RAB), say the idea was inspired by a study published in the journal Plant and Soil earlier this year (21 January), which noted the use of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis to determine the mineral content of soil samples.

XRF analysis generates X-rays of different colours to indicate the presence, and concentration, of elements such as iron and zinc. It is quick to display results, and each sample costs just 15 US cents to analyse – compared to US$20 for other chemical analysis technologies.

In Rwanda, beans are regarded as a near-perfect food as they contain many important nutrients, and between 22 to 30 per cent of arable land across the country is currently used to grow them, according to the RAB.

The Rwandan team used XRF to analyse three varieties of bio-fortified beans – climbing, bush and snap beans. They analysed 15 samples in total, and found four were particularly rich in mineral nutrients such as iron and zinc, according to Augustine Musoni, a senior researcher at the RAB.

"This is a step forward in [reducing] malnutrition while improving the lives of smallholder farmers," Musoni told SciDev.Net.

Iron deficiency in food crops can inhibit physical and mental development in children, and increase the risk of women dying in childbirth, Musoni added.

The Plant and Soil study was funded by HarvestPlus, which is part of the Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health programme of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

HarvestPlus has formed partnerships with research institutes in Bangladesh, Mexico and India to make further use of the technology in crops like rice and pearl millet. It has set up XRF facilities in these institutes and trained local scientists to use them..

The main purpose of the new technology according to Tiwirai Lister Katsvairo, the Rwanda country representative for HarvestPlus, is to deliver nutritious staple food crops to reduce "hidden hunger" — the lack of dietary vitamins and minerals, adding that more than half of Rwanda's children under five, and a third of the female population, are anaemic.

Daphrose Gahakwa, deputy director-general of the RAB said that XRF technology would be a beneficial method of testing mineral content in seeds. The challenge in delivering this innovation, she said, was how to deliver those benefits to remote areas of the country.

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BIRDS’ FLU RETHOUGHT WITH SCIENTIFIC OPENNESS

BIRDS’ FLU RETHOUGHT WITH SCIENTIFIC OPENNESS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Birds flu struck the world as a pandemic just a few years back, creating fright night panic in some key cities over incoming overseas visitors that are afflicted with the ailment. Indonesia is among those countries hit hard in terms of transmission of the birds flu, and so the Indonesian case could be examined to rethink the health problem at hand.

What makes the birds flu hazard truly alarming is that over 80% of those afflicted die of the disease. It now seems that, on hindsight, the lack of scientific openness had inflated the destructive reach and impact of the bird flu pandemic.

There is over-consciousness about intellectual property piracy of course, which accounts for the behavior of self-constraint among research scientists. How far can that wall of secrecy be loosened up to effect a cross-border clamp down of the bird flu virus?

Below is an interesting reportage about the subject.

[Philippines, 03 April 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/health/bird-flu/editorials/tackling-bird-flu-effectively-needs-scientific-openness-1.html

Tackling bird flu effectively needs scientific openness

David Dickson

2 March 2012

Efforts to limit publication of controversial bird flu research could end up doing more harm than good.

Last week, a 12-year-old boy in Indonesia died after becoming infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. His death brought the global death toll to 347 since the disease was first reported among humans in 2005.

At first sight the figure does not look too alarming compared to the many millions that die from other infectious diseases. And although the virus is usually fatal — up to 80 per cent of those infected die from it — the overall incidence of human infection remains relatively low.

This is because most people only get infected through contact with infected poultry. But what if the virus could spread between humans?

This spectre has now been raised by two teams of scientists, working at a medical centre in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin in the United States, respectively. Each team genetically altered the virus into a form that can pass between ferrets through the air — implying that a similar strain could evolve (or be created) that could spread between humans.

The consequences could be so disastrous that last year, a US body set up in 2005 to look at the potential biosecurity risks of laboratory-created organisms recommended that papers on the work submitted to the world's two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, should not be published in full.

The argument of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) was that the information could be used by terrorist groups or individuals to produce a powerful biological weapon that could spark a deadly epidemic if released into the human population.

Risks of restriction

There is a strong logic to this argument. Withholding the technical details of the steps required to produce a deadly virus would certainly make it considerably more difficult for anyone to copy the process.

And some have advocated going even further to curtail access to such information with calls for a ban on all research that could lead to new, potentially lethal viruses. Their argument is that the threat such viruses would pose if they escaped from the laboratory is so great that nothing justifies the risk of even carrying out research for them.

But both arguments have flaws. Those seeking publication of the information in heavily edited form risk denying scientists access to data that could play an essential role in preparing defences against the virus, such as developing vaccines.

A complete ban on the research could have similar repercussions. Scientific understanding of the bird flu virus, how it spreads and how it mutates, is essential to minimise the chances of another flu pandemic. The flu virus that swept across the world in 1918 killed up to 20 per cent of those infected, causing an estimated 50 million deaths.

An alternative strategy

The scientific community has had intense discussions over what to do with the papers over the past few months.

Initially the NSABB suggested a solution could lie in publishing redacted (edited) versions of the papers with some of the key scientific and technical data omitted.

Both journals to which the research was submitted have been exploring how they might do this while making full versions of the papers available to scientists who have been vetted to ensure they would use the data responsibly.

But on close examination, this option has presented difficulties. For example, much of the technical data in one of the papers has already been presented at a scientific conference so attempts to prevent its further dissemination may be ineffective.

Another significant objection raised at a meeting organised by the WHO in Geneva two weeks ago (16 February) was the difficulty of reaching an international consensus on the criteria for vetting scientists who request the full data.

Concerns in perspective

Following the WHO meeting Nature said in an editorial that the benefits of open publication outweighed the risks identified so far, and that in principle "the papers should ultimately be published in full". [1]

Similarly the editor of Science said in a recent interview with the BBC that "our default position is that we have to publish in complete form". [2]

A final decision is awaiting further discussion at the WHO. But this position is brave, and correct.

There are substantial public health benefits in as many scientists as possible having access to the data if they are to understand potential changes to the virus.

These outweigh the advantages — likely to be short-lived — of restricting access to prevent the data from falling into the wrong hands. And at present, the biosecurity concerns are "too general and hypothetical", says Nature.

Furthermore, the political sensitivities of deciding who the 'wrong hands' are, and who should make this decision, risk heightening the international tensions that already exist over attempts to limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, most recently over Iran's nuclear programme.

But two things are essential if the data are to be made more widely available. First, open publication must be accompanied by an effective monitoring system. This would look out for potential misuse of the data.

Second, the issue needs as wide a public debate as possible, actively promoted by both health officials and journalists to ensure it is adequately informed.

Developing countries such as Indonesia, which has the highest bird flu transmission rates and the most fatalities, have a particular interest in the outcome of this debate. They have more to gain from new techniques to prevent virus transmission, such as effective vaccines, than from restrictions on the publication of these data.

Concerns about biosecurity must be kept in perspective. They are certainly important, but should not cloud our judgement on the urgency of developing adequate protection against an evolved form of the virus, whether natural or man-made.

David Dickson
Editor, SciDev.Net

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SOUND SCIENCE SUSTAINS OCEANS

SOUND SCIENCE SUSTAINS OCEANS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Ocean management is among the emerging multi-disciplinal fields today. Judging by the rise of eco-disaster events such as oil spillage in the oceans of late, there is no reason to further delay the growth of ocean management.

Sound science is the key to workable ocean management, and I do go along with this contention. Better monitoring can buttress emergency responses by millions of folds, so the efforts toward better monitoring should be done with greater vigor.

Let’s go back to the tsunami that struck Japan over a year ago. That catastrophe left too much indelible scars on the Japanese national life as well as the global community, as there was only a fractional monitoring of oceans across the globe at that juncture. Quick response could have saved more lives and properties then, should the proper monitoring systems been in place worldwide.

Ocean management is a cross-country concern and should not just be the expertise of a few notable wealthy economies and emerging markets. The sharing of information should be one of sanguine interdependence across the globe, as ocean problems affect regions and economies when they are at peak points.

Below is a nice discussion about the subject.

[Philippines, 29 March 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/ocean-science-for-sustainable-development/editorials/managing-oceans-with-sound-science-1.html

Managing oceans with sound science

David Dickson and Anita Makri

15 February 2012

Management of marine resources for sustainable development needs local capacity for science, particularly in the Pacific region.

Those who care about environmental damage and its effects on the health and welfare of communities tend to focus on land-based threats. That is where harm can be most easily observed, and where its causes — from agricultural pesticides to industrial air pollution — are most readily identified.

But this ignores the vast damage that human activity has also inflicted on the planet's largest, and possibly most valuable, resource: its oceans.

Oceans cover nearly three quarters of the Earth's surface, contain 80 per cent of its living organisms, and deliver 60 per cent of the dietary protein in tropical developing countries.

The services that oceans provide are now under threat from human activities ranging from severe over-fishing to mineral extraction, and from the impacts of acidification to global warming.

There is no simple response to these threats. But an essential component of any strategy to protect the oceans — and to ensure sustainable development of their resources — is effective, science-based management.

This, in turn, requires reliable data on which to base sound policy decisions (as well as an appropriate balance between science and traditional local knowledge).

So one of the biggest challenges facing communities that rely on healthy oceans for their survival — particularly the small island developing states (SIDS) in the Pacific and elsewhere — is building the capacity to both generate and interpret such data.

Oceans in the spotlight

This week, we present a number of articles highlighting the challenges faced in generating the robust scientific data that form the bedrock to effective management of marine resources, with a particular emphasis on the Pacific region.

Our Spotlight opens with an overview of the issues at stake. Sarah Grimes, the editorial consultant on this project, describes the main monitoring and data-gathering projects that currently operate in the Pacific, and how they help keep track of threats to sustainable development.

She outlines how ocean science developed from the early 1800s to the initiatives agreed twenty years ago at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and looks at the future challenges facing small island developing nations.

Grimes also warns that "Limited information can lead to poor decisions that limit countries' capacity to develop without damaging the marine environment and the health of local populations, perpetuating the cycle of poverty".

In the first of three opinion articles, Ben Ponia describes how monitoring priorities have changed over the years in the Cook Islands, of which he is marine resources secretary. He highlights the importance of building local capacity to use scientific tools, and argues that Pacific islands need to take responsibility for monitoring into their own hands.

Fisheries scientist Johann Bell looks at how better monitoring data could improve fishing strategies. He argues that climate change, despite the dangers it presents, could actually benefit some Pacific countries through increasing catches of tuna. But success will require information from local communities, relevant training programmes, and long-term investment by countries themselves.

Ocean scientists Sidney Thurston and M. Ravichandran describe the growing risk of damage — whether through vandalism or negligence — to ocean buoys that gather crucial data for ocean and climate monitoring. They warn that without action to prevent such damage, the global community will suffer not only the financial loses, but also vital data, and even lives.

Finally, in a feature on the growth of locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) in the Pacific region — one of the success stories of sustainable ocean resource development — assistant news editor Naomi Antony describes the challenges in balancing the contribution of modern science with that of the traditional knowledge embedded in local cultures, and the practical demands of locally managed resource conservation strategies.

Signs of progress

Of course, good scientific data, and even well-designed conservation strategies, are not sufficient to ensure sustainable development. Equally necessary is a political framework to ensure that both are put into effective use.

So there are high hopes that one of the more substantial conclusions to emerge from the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, which takes place in June (20 years after the first Earth Summit), will be political agreement on the need for a number of steps to protect the world's marine resources.

So far the signs are promising. The 'zero draft' of the final report for the conference, published last month, includes a commitment to a new treaty to protect the two-thirds of the world's oceans that lie outside national jurisdictions. It also promises to address issues such as marine debris and ocean acidification.

There are therefore reasons to be optimistic that the Rio+20 conference will be a milestone in efforts to protect the oceans for future generations. But political agreement will be meaningless unless it can be translated into concrete steps. As Grimes points out, previous commitments have been slow to progress, partly because political priorities often work against the direction of good environmental management.

Future progress will rely on science playing a major role through spotting and analysing problems, identifying potential solutions, and monitoring how effective they have been. Much of this requires coordinated action at the international level.

But ultimately, true progress must be local. Those island states on the front line of problems created by poor ocean management need support and resources to develop their capacity to generate and use scientific data. Only then can they play a full role in establishing a more effective, and sustainable, approach.

David Dickson,
Editor, SciDev.Net

Anita Makri,
Commissioning editor, SciDev.Net

This article is part of a Spotlight on Ocean science for sustainable development.

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ASIA’S 2ND GREEN REVOLUTION, WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

ASIA’S 2^ND GREEN REVOLUTION, WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Crispin Maslog from the Philippines has been advocating for a 2^nd Green Revolution for Asia. I wonder what fellow development stakeholders think about this afterthought.

The Green Revolution was waged beginning in the 1960s, with no less than Philippine technocrats and industry players praising the UN-led initiative to high praises. The International Rice Research Institute was founded in Laguna, Philippines in 1964, and the rice science maturation is history.

Couples of decades later, could we ever say that the explosion in agricultural production which the term ‘green revolution’ ever redeem the shirtless folks from hunger? That wave of agricultural explosion immensely damaged the top soil of many developing countries, damage that is almost irreversible at this juncture. There was hardly any discernable association of the ‘green’ in that crop revolution to ecological balance that the term connotes today.

So what’s your take about this 2^nd Green Revolution for the world’s most populous continent?

[Philippines, 15 March 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/opinions/asia-pacific-analysis-launching-a-second-green-revolution-1.html

Asia–Pacific Analysis: Launching a second Green Revolution

Crispin Maslog

23 February 2012

Feeding South-East Asia's rapidly growing population requires a second Green Revolution, says Crispin Maslog.

The Day of Seven Billion was proclaimed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on 31 October 2011 as a historic milestone — the day the world's population reached seven billion people. And the world is on a steep growth curve for the rest of this century.

More than half (3.8 billion) of the population are Asians. Although South-East Asia comprises only 0.6 billion, it is growing fast — by almost 200 per cent between 1950 and 2000 — and is set to grow by another 50 per cent by 2050. [1]

One of the most critical challenges facing a world with a population of seven billion is how to feed the roughly three billion people living below the poverty line in the slums of developing countries.

A 'perfect storm'

Scientists have warned that in the next 50 years, the world will consume twice as much food as it has since the beginning of agriculture 10,000 years ago. [2] This is a startling statistic.

But thinking beyond food security to other crises facing the planet, the prospects look even more daunting. Asian agricultural scientist William D. Dar, director-general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), spoke last month of a coming "perfect storm". [3]

This will be triggered by food shortages resulting from the population explosion, and aggravated by a combination of climate change (leading to warming temperatures and weather extremes including droughts and floods), land degradation, loss of biodiversity and increasing demand for energy.

To meet the challenge of feeding the half-billion or so poor people in South-East Asia and the Pacific, Dar and other agricultural scientists, including International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) director-general Robert Zeigler, have called for a second Green Revolution.

The first Green Revolution, led in Asia by IRRI in the 1960s and 1970s, prevented a predicted famine. Much of its success was due to the technological development of crops, such as semi-dwarf rice variety IR8, also known as the 'miracle rice' that produced 10 times the yield of traditional rice.

But despite its success, the Green Revolution had its share of critics. There were mistakes and side effects. Lessons must be learned if the countries of South-East Asia and the Pacific are to benefit from a second Green Revolution.

A greener revolution

The Green Revolution was criticised for focusing on a few high-yielding varieties that depend on irrigation, chemical fertilisers and pesticides. These practices harmed the environment and affected both agricultural and wild biodiversity.

It also meant that farmers began to rely on just a few crop species. In India, for example, there were about 30,000 rice varieties before the Green Revolution. Today there are around 10 — the most productive types.

Mono-cropping has left the three staple crops of the Green Revolution — rice, maize and wheat — vulnerable to plant diseases that cannot be controlled by agrochemicals. It also led to concerns about the permanent loss of valuable genetic traits bred into traditional varieties over thousands of years.

To avoid repeating these mistakes, a second Green Revolution should include more than the staple crops that fed the world from the 1950s to the 1980s, and embrace dryland farming to grow crops such as sorghum, cassava and beans.

And it should harness South-East Asia's vast upland, rain-fed agricultural areas, not just the irrigated lowlands at the centre of food production decades ago. About 70 per cent of the land area of South-East Asia is rain-fed, and most of its poor people live in these areas.

Harnessing science

Agricultural science and technologies developed over the decades can contribute to the success of a second Green Revolution. The challenge is to increase production using less water, nutrients and land, and with lower environmental impact.

But food security also requires crops that can withstand extreme weather. For example, IRRI has developed a rice variety that can survive two weeks of complete submergence in water, and recently released to farmers in Bangladesh two drought-tolerant rice varieties, BRRI dhan56 and BRRI dhan57. [4]

And ICRISAT has developed and tested innovations in crop, soil and water management that can help farmers better adapt to the impacts of climate change. For example, it has shown that adapting the germplasm of sorghum — the dietary staple of more than 500 million people in rain-fed areas — can help maintain crop yields in warmer temperatures.

Scientific innovations are here to be harnessed to head off the looming 'perfect storm'. What is needed is the political will — from governments, foundations and international agencies — to jump-start a second, greener Green Revolution in the uplands.

Crispin Maslog is a Manila-based consultant for the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication. A former journalist, professor and environmental activist, he worked for the Press Foundation of Asia and the International Rice Research Institute.

References

[1] Hayes, A. C. and Zhao, Z. Population prospects in East and Southeast Asia. (East Asia Forum, 2012)
[2] International Service for the Acquistion of Agri-Biotech Applications. Brief 43-2011: Executive Summary. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011.
[3] Dar, W. D. Weathering the perfect storm. (Disaster Management Times, 2012).
[4] Dobermann, A. Blueprint for a greener revolution. Rice Today 10, 18–21 (2011)

INDIA GEARS UP AS SCIENCE SUPERPOWER

INDIA GEARS UP AS SCIENCE SUPERPOWER

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

India is gearing up to become a science superpower. Millions of youth are being urged to take up science careers, and there’s sufficient reason to forecast the success of this expectation.

Federal institutions have already allotted no less than US $8B for science R&D to bring science to the next level. Do note that at this juncture, certain industrial sectors have already matured in their science & technology components, to wit: automotives, metallurgy, chemicals, biotech, nuclear tech, rocketry, castings & forgings, heavy equipment, transport, and more.

Asia already outpaced the West’s technology cutting edge in 2007 yet, thanks to relentless efforts in S&T research & development. India is among the core contributors to the Asian surge in science & technology, just to stress the point a bit.

All power to Indian science!

[Philippines, 13 March 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/features/challenges-facing-india-s-bid-for-science-superpower-status.html

Challenges facing India's bid for science 'superpower' status

Source: Science

27 February 2012

India is well-placed to push ahead with its bid to become a scientific powerhouse — but there are hurdles ahead if the dream is to be fully realised, according to an article published in Science.

During India's Cold War alliance with the former Soviet Union, Western sanctions forced researchers to grow their own civilian nuclear power industry and space programme.

Following a landmark civilian nuclear deal with the United States in 2008, India shook off its sanction era limitations, and has invested heavily to enable other disciplines to mimic its stellar achievements in rocketry and nuclear science.

Last month Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that R&D expenditure would nearly triple — from US$3 billion last year to US$8 billion by 2017 — and that the private sector would receive incentives to add to that investment.

The government has also established a National Science and Engineering Research Board, modelled on the US National Science Foundation, which is expected to fund its first competitive grants this year.

But obstacles remain, including the challenge of navigating India's complex bureaucracy.

"Even the best of intentions can disappear without a trace in the quicksands of officialdom," says Padmanabhan Balaram, director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Many universities have also been slow to benefit from the extra available cash, because of poor facilities, limited opportunities for younger academics, and issues with corruption.

Rather than upgrade India's universities, the government has — somewhat controversially — chosen to expand the education and research system on an unprecedented scale.

New institutes of scientific education and research have been created, and millions of high school students are to receive one-off grants to encourage them to consider careers in science.

To further boost capacity, the government is also setting up fellowship programmes to persuade Indian graduates not to follow the well-worn path of a stint in an overseas laboratory — and to entice those living abroad to come home.

"There's a concerted movement to bring people back," says Savita Ayyar, head of the research development office at the National Centre for Biological Sciences.

"Now we're able to create an environment and mechanisms for postdocs to stay here."

And as India's economy roars, while Western economies struggle, the current trickle of returning scientists could turn into a flood.

Link to full article in Science

TRAVAILS OF AFRICAN SCIENCE RESEARCHERS

TRAVAILS OF AFRICAN SCIENCE RESEARCHERS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Bad news for the development stakeholders!

African science researchers are having a hard time sustaining their professional careers. These are not just ordinary run of the mill researchers or those pretenders out there, but PhD degree holders.

The situation calls for greater linkage between universities and end-users in the noblesse continent. In the Asian experience, end users (notably industry users) provide huge endowment funds, research funds and scholarships to universities, such as my country the Philippines has shown so far; in return, end users absorb the top-of-the-line graduates of top universities.

I guess it’s a question of the level of institutionalization of science in any one context that defines the degree of professional security of its career scientists. Africa’s sciences are still in their take-off through growth stages, while those of emerging markets’ are already in their maturity phase.

Let’s hope for the best in the coming maturation of science in Africa. It may take a bit of time, but good examples are already popping up in key urban centers across the continent.

[Philippines, 11 March 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/education/news/african-researchers-struggle-to-establish-careers.html

African researchers 'struggle' to establish careers

Mićo Tatalović

28 February 2012

[LONDON] African universities need to better support early career researchers if they are to build a thriving research environment and boost the continent's overall number of PhD-qualified staff, according to a joint report by the British Academy and the Association of Commonwealth Universities launched yesterday (27 February).

Many African science graduates struggle to establish careers after leaving university as they do not receive enough assistance to define their research agendas and develop professionally, says the report, Foundations for the Future: Supporting the Early Careers of African Researchers.

Instead, post-doctorate graduates working as 'junior lecturers' in African universities are often overloaded with teaching and administrative duties, and have to pursue research and writing academic papers in their spare time.

To counter this, the report urges senior academics to encourage research by younger colleagues and to mentor them on collaborations, publishing and preparing funding applications.

It is essential that science be recognised as an "intergenerational endeavour", the report's author, Jonathan Harle, told SciDev.Net:

"One thing which is absolutely critical is … trying to find ways in which senior academics can be encouraged, enabled and incentivised to nurture [the early career researchers]," he said.

The report builds on the Nairobi Process, a series of actions and initiatives developed to improve UK-Africa research collaborations in the humanities and social sciences, which is being coordinated by the British Academy and the ACU.

Its recommendations are the product of consultations with African and British academics across a wide range of fields, said Graham Furniss, chair of the British Academy's Africa Panel.

"The analysis and the mechanisms proposed are, we think, very relevant to STEM [science, technology, engineering and medicine] subjects and we would welcome further discussion on how the UK could strengthen support across the board to early career scholars," he said.

Marta Tufet, International Activities Adviser at the Wellcome Trust, called for the active involvement of vice chancellors and rectors in the creation of better mentoring programmes in Africa.

She warned that without the support of university leaders to enable researchers to carry out their own work, little progress could be expected.

Kenyan Chege Githiora, from the African Studies Centre at the School of Oriental and African Studies, United Kingdom, welcomed the report but told SciDev.Net that capacity-building of university administrators and librarians is equally important.

"These are the people who actually keep the universities running so if you don't have their support you cannot do your research," Githiora said. "My experience with [African universities] is that a lot of hindrances young African scholars encounter have to do with university administration and governance."

ASIANS TOP USA-EUROPE SCIENCE R&D SPENDING

ASIANS TOP USA-EUROPE SCIENCE R&D SPENDING

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Another breakthrough news has struck our perception banks recently, with the gladdening news that Asians as a whole have topped both USA and EU spendings on science research & development.

Ten Asian countries are noted to be leading the way for Asians as a whole in sci-tech R & D, to note: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The time frame used for the research on sci-tech R&D funding was 1999 through 2009.

The brightening news surely correlates well with the conclusion of Western observers that the East had already surpassed the West technologically in the year 2007. It also ties up with another news, coming from Western observers, that science research publications in Asia have risen by many folds over the last ten (10) years.

The news is truly brightening, as the Asian ethos of sharing will see the East disseminating its sci-tech knowledge to shore up the stagnating West in the coming decades. That is in far contrast to the bellicose and hostile attitudes of the West during their imperious occupation of Asian territories and post-war hegemonism.

[Philippines, 06 February 201]]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/finance/news/asian-countries-collectively-top-us-r-d-spend.html

Asian countries collectively top US R&D spend

Mićo Tatalović

19 January 2012 | EN

Overall, Asia now invests in R&D as much as the United States

Ten Asian countries, including some developing countries in South-East Asia, have, as a bloc, caught up with the global leader in research and development (R&D) investment, the United States, according to a US report published this week (17 January).

The total science spend of China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam rose steadily between 1999 and 2009 to reach 32 per cent of the global share of spending on science, compared with 31 per cent in the US.

A "major trend has been the rapid expansion of R&D performance in the regions of East/Southeast Asia and South Asia," according to the biennial report 'Science and Engineering Indicators 2012' produced by the National Science Board, the policy-making body of the US National Science Foundation, which drew upon a variety of national and international statistics.

The report also mentions that the share of R&D expenditure spent by US multinationals in Asia-Pacific has increased.

"Asia's rapid ascent as a major world science and technology (S&T) centre is chiefly driven by developments in China," says the report. "But several other Asian economies (the Asia-8 [India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand]) have also played a role.

"All are intent on boosting quality of, and access to, higher education and developing world-class research and S&T infrastructures.

"The Asia-8 functions like a loosely structured supplier zone for China's high-technology manufacturing export industries.

"This supplier zone increasingly appears to include Japan. Japan, a preeminent S&T nation, is continuing to lose ground relative to China and the Asia-8 in high-technology manufacturing and trade," the report says.

"India's high gross domestic product (GDP) growth continues to contrast with a fledgling overall S&T performance."

The figures show that China, while still a long way behind the United States, is now the second largest R&D performer globally, contributing 12 per cent of the global research spend. It has overtaken Japan, which contributed 11 per cent in 2009.

The proportion of GDP that China devotes to science funding has doubled since 1999 to 1.7 per cent and China's pace of real growth in R&D expenditure "remains exceptionally high at about 20 per cent annually," the report says.

Overall, world expenditures on R&D are estimated to have exceeded US$1.25 trillion in 2009, up from US$641 billion a decade earlier.

"Governments in many parts of the developing world, viewing science and technology as integral to economic growth and development, have set out to build more knowledge-intensive economies," it says.

"They have taken steps to open their markets to trade and foreign investment, develop their S&T infrastructures, stimulate industrial R&D, expand their higher education systems, and build indigenous R&D capabilities. Over time, global S&T capabilities have grown, nowhere more so than in Asia."

A study, published last year in Scientometrics, said South-East Asian science papers have proliferated in the past decade, suggesting a move towards knowledge-based economies in the region.

Asia's combined production of science and engineering publications is also approaching that of the United States and European Union, and Asia is already a top producer of engineering publications.

"Engineering is vital to knowledge-intensive and technologically advanced economies, and many Asian economies are building their engineering capabilities," the report digest says.

"China publishes 15 per cent of global engineering articles, and Asia as a whole publishes twice as many engineering articles as the United States and half again as many as the EU [European Union]."

Link to full report

TUNISIA JUMP-STARTS S & T

TUNISIA JUMP-STARTS S & T

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Tunisia is a showcase country in terms of the governance change waged via the Arab Spring. The turbulence that saw the overthrow of the authoritarian regime there surely had some dislocating effects on certain sectors.

Needless to say, the event was so tumultuous as to have put to a near-catastrophic halt the development thrusts of the nation. Gargantuan amounts of monies were siphoned off from the public purse by the corrupt regime’s top leaders, thus disabling the poorer sectors from moving up the ladder.

Also badly affected by the corruption was the science & technology of the country as a whole. It seems that Tunisia has to start all over again as far as S&T is concerned, which rationalizes the attention showed unto this sector by the new government.

Below is a special report on the subject.

[Philippines, 27 November 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/middle-east-and-north-africa/tunisia/news/tunisia-to-boost-its-s-t-with-us-16-5-million-project.html

Tunisia to boost its S&T with US$16.5 million project

Nébil Zaghdoud

2 November 2011 | EN

[TUNIS] The Tunisian government has launched a US$16.5 million project to support the country's scientific research and innovation systems.

The three-year project, funded by the European Union, will aim to improve governance of the country's research and innovation sector, revitalise research and develop new national and international collaborations, according to Abdelaziz Rassaa, minister for industry and technology.

"The Support Project to Research and Innovative System (SPRIS) is an excellent opportunity to boost the National Research and Innovation System in Tunisia, which needs to be efficient to successfully carry out any economic development strategy," said Rassaa at the launch of the project last month (12 October).

By 2016, Tunisia aims to increase its exports of technological products from 30 per cent to 50 per cent by developing industrial sectors, such as electronics, through research and innovation, said the minister.

The steering committee for the project met for the first time last month (12 October) and is still to develop a strategy document and assign funds to individual projects.

Rachid Ghrir, director of research at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research told SciDev.Net that the focus is to "improve the contribution of research and innovation to socioeconomic development and generate new jobs in Tunisia, while strengthening ties between the research and production systems and helping the country integrate into European research programmes".

MohamedMaalej, a member of the National Advisory Council for Scientific and Technological Research, told SciDev.Net: "Although Tunisiahas an integrated systemof scientific research and innovation in terms of legislation and institutions, the economic return of research resultsis still weak, especially in the field of industry".

The country allocates 1.25 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to research and development and plans to reach 1.5 per cent of GDP by 2014, but the effect on the economy s of such investment are largely still to be seen, according to Maalej.

Maalej added that "this new project should adopt a cost-effective strategy to ensure the best use of research results, especially in the industrial field" and that it should "make use of international cooperation for supporting national research and industrial projects".

"The implementation of such an ambitious project is the main challenge," said Souheib Oueslati, a biotechnology researcher at the Center of Biotechnology.

Project leaders should ensure they stick to the key targets outlined in the project, "so the scientific research system, the economy, and society as a whole benefit".

The Tunisian National Research and Innovation System is made up of 33 research centers and almost 16,000 researchers, according to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

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PEACE & DEVELOPMENT LINKS:

http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, http://unladtau.wordpress.com, http://www.facebook.com, http://www.newciv.org, http://sta.rtup.biz, http://magicalsecretgarden.socialparadox.com, http://en.netlog.com/erlefrayne, http://www.blogster.com/erleargonza, http://www.articlesforfree.net, http://ipeace.us, http://internationalpeaceandconflict.org, http://www.blogleaf.com/erleargonza, http://erleargonza.seekopia.com, http://lovingenergies.spruz.com, http://efdargon.multiply.com, http://www.blogleaf.com/erleargonza, http://talangguro.blogfree.net

TUNISIA JUMP-STARTS S & T

TUNISIA JUMP-STARTS S & T

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Tunisia is a showcase country in terms of the governance change waged via the Arab Spring. The turbulence that saw the overthrow of the authoritarian regime there surely had some dislocating effects on certain sectors.

Needless to say, the event was so tumultuous as to have put to a near-catastrophic halt the development thrusts of the nation. Gargantuan amounts of monies were siphoned off from the public purse by the corrupt regime’s top leaders, thus disabling the poorer sectors from moving up the ladder.

Also badly affected by the corruption was the science & technology of the country as a whole. It seems that Tunisia has to start all over again as far as S&T is concerned, which rationalizes the attention showed unto this sector by the new government.

Below is a special report on the subject.

[Philippines, 27 November 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/middle-east-and-north-africa/tunisia/news/tunisia-to-boost-its-s-t-with-us-16-5-million-project.html

Tunisia to boost its S&T with US$16.5 million project

Nébil Zaghdoud

2 November 2011 | EN

[TUNIS] The Tunisian government has launched a US$16.5 million project to support the country's scientific research and innovation systems.

The three-year project, funded by the European Union, will aim to improve governance of the country's research and innovation sector, revitalise research and develop new national and international collaborations, according to Abdelaziz Rassaa, minister for industry and technology.

"The Support Project to Research and Innovative System (SPRIS) is an excellent opportunity to boost the National Research and Innovation System in Tunisia, which needs to be efficient to successfully carry out any economic development strategy," said Rassaa at the launch of the project last month (12 October).

By 2016, Tunisia aims to increase its exports of technological products from 30 per cent to 50 per cent by developing industrial sectors, such as electronics, through research and innovation, said the minister.

The steering committee for the project met for the first time last month (12 October) and is still to develop a strategy document and assign funds to individual projects.

Rachid Ghrir, director of research at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research told SciDev.Net that the focus is to "improve the contribution of research and innovation to socioeconomic development and generate new jobs in Tunisia, while strengthening ties between the research and production systems and helping the country integrate into European research programmes".

MohamedMaalej, a member of the National Advisory Council for Scientific and Technological Research, told SciDev.Net: "Although Tunisiahas an integrated systemof scientific research and innovation in terms of legislation and institutions, the economic return of research resultsis still weak, especially in the field of industry".

The country allocates 1.25 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to research and development and plans to reach 1.5 per cent of GDP by 2014, but the effect on the economy s of such investment are largely still to be seen, according to Maalej.

Maalej added that "this new project should adopt a cost-effective strategy to ensure the best use of research results, especially in the industrial field" and that it should "make use of international cooperation for supporting national research and industrial projects".

"The implementation of such an ambitious project is the main challenge," said Souheib Oueslati, a biotechnology researcher at the Center of Biotechnology.

Project leaders should ensure they stick to the key targets outlined in the project, "so the scientific research system, the economy, and society as a whole benefit".

The Tunisian National Research and Innovation System is made up of 33 research centers and almost 16,000 researchers, according to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

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PEACE & DEVELOPMENT LINKS:

http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, http://unladtau.wordpress.com, http://www.facebook.com, http://www.newciv.org, http://sta.rtup.biz, http://magicalsecretgarden.socialparadox.com, http://en.netlog.com/erlefrayne, http://www.blogster.com/erleargonza, http://www.articlesforfree.net, http://ipeace.us, http://internationalpeaceandconflict.org, http://www.blogleaf.com/erleargonza, http://erleargonza.seekopia.com, http://lovingenergies.spruz.com, http://efdargon.multiply.com, http://www.blogleaf.com/erleargonza, http://talangguro.blogfree.net