At the same occasion, Ngirente also launched of National Research and Innovation Fund which is part of the National Strategy for transformation 2017-2024.
By discussing on how to promote collaboration between the academia and industry, Ngirente said that the symposium will complement the efforts of the Government of Rwanda in identifying key thematic areas and corresponding strategies to support Rwanda’s drive to knowledge based economy.
“It will also advise on how as a country, can efficiently build research and innovation capacity taking academia and industry collaboration,” he said.
On National Research and Innovation Fund, Ngirente said that the fund comes at moment in which Rwanda is working towards becoming a competitive knowledge-based economy.
“The fund will serve as a major research funding vehicle through which the government of Rwanda will support research and research based innovation activities,” he said.
Ngirente said that the rationale behind is to address key needs and tap into identified opportunity towards national growth and competitiveness.
He said that the government will continue to support research and technology with particular emphasis to link young innovators with the labour market.
The Executive Secretary of National Commission for Science and Technology (NCST), Prof. Manassé Mbonye said that they have been encountering challenges during the research process, but is optimistic that the fund will solve them.
“There are activities that should be in place to be able to use technologies and skills in national development. We should have a good plan of our requirement,” he said.
He said that they need to conduct research on climate change for them to normalize agriculture among other sectors of the economy of the country.
Leave a Reply