Scientific mission to Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea
Bern, 18.06.2015 - Between 10 and 17 June, a high-ranking delegation led by Ambassador Mauro Moruzzi undertook a scientific mission to Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. The agenda included official high-level meetings with members of the Ministries of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Health and Agriculture to discuss how to promote scientific cooperation between Swiss, Ivorian and Guinean in-stitutions. The delegation also met with the Ivorian Minister for Post, Information Technology and Communication to discuss the technological options for offering distance learning via MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).
Switzerland and Côte d’Ivoire have cooperated in the scientific field for several decades, primarily via the Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifique (CSRS), a Swiss research centre based in Abidjan, which operates both regionally and with other countries. The CSRS conducts research into the environment, public health, food security and biodiversity, and basic research in biology and microbiology. Founded in 1951 by a professor at the University of Neuchâtel, the CSRS has continued to cooperate with Switzerland uninterrupted, even during times of political unrest. Today its main partner is the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) in Basel, which is also the leading house in Switzerland in cooperative activities with Côte d’Ivoire.
During the visit, two new agreements were signed between the CSRS and Swiss partners. The first of these is with the University of Geneva, setting up a close partnership involving student, researcher and lecturer exchanges. The two institutions intend to work more closely together in the natural sciences, medicine, humanities and social sciences. The second agreement was signed with the Swiss Federal Research Station Agroscope, with the aim of conducting joint projects in agronomy, agroecology and soil development. The EPF Lausanne, which was also represented in the Swiss delegation, already works with the CSRS in offering MOOCs. A pioneer in this area both in Europe and the French-speaking world, the EPFL already offers about thirty online courses in mathematics, physics and IT, which are of great interest to Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. The EPFL has also developed programmes for certified training courses specific to the needs of the south, for example on waste water treatment and urban construction.
In Côte d’Ivoire the EPFL also works closely with the Houphouët-Boigny University in Abidjan (UFHB) and the Félix Houphouët-Boigny National Polytechnic Institute, creating MOOCs and training teachers in new information and communication technologies. Finally, a meeting took place between members of the two countries’ national research funding agencies, the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF and the Programme ivoirien d’Appui Stratégique à la Recherche Scientifique (PASRES).
The delegation continued its mission to Guinea, where the Swiss TPH, the CSRS and its partner, the NGO Swissad-Malaria, discussed cooperation possibilities, in particular in the fields of public health, veterinary medicine and tropical diseases. In a country that was recently badly hit by the Ebola epidemic and in which malaria is endemic, the work of the CSRS and the Swiss TPH focuses on research and prevention in these fields. The objective of the official meetings was to draw the Guinean authorities’ attention to existing cooperation opportunities, identify potential partners and present the Swiss Government Scholarship programme, which targets young researchers from around the world.Address for enquiries
Mauro Moruzzi
Ambassador
State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation
Head, International Relations
Tel: +41 58 462 68 36
Mauro.Moruzzi@sbfi.admin.ch
Publisher
State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation
http://www.sbfi.admin.ch
