Within the framework of the #CienciaEnMovimiento cycle of the CILAC Forum, and on the occasion of the launch of the UNESCO POLICyT Lab Document Series, a discussion will be held with senior officials from the science and technology areas of sub-national governments of Argentina and Mexico. Since its launch, more than 28 thousand people have been part of the colloquiums of the #CienciaEnMovimiento cycle of CILAC.
Greater awareness of the role played by scientific knowledge as one of the main platforms on which the economic development capacities of societies are mounted, as well as its potential contribution to the new challenges facing humanity (such as climate change) , has translated in recent decades into a growing relevance of policies to promote scientific research and technological development. Even though in less economically advanced countries other emergencies have tended to prevail when it comes to allocating budget resources, the issue has already entered the agendas of different governments around the world.
In recent years, this phenomenon is no longer only observable at the level of National States, but also at sub-national levels of government. At the beginning of this new century, the existence of institutional structures specifically dedicated to this matter at these government levels was a characteristic of few countries. However, the last five years have seen the emergence of Ministries, Secretariats and/or specialized Agencies in many of the countries with the largest population in the region and that have a federal political organization, such as Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. . And, although in an emerging way, regional networks of local governments such as Mercociudades and Zicosur have also begun to incorporate the topic into their work agenda.
In this meeting, the focus will be placed, precisely, on the importance of the local scale for the development of scientific and technological policies. For this reason, we invite representatives of different governments in the region, participants of the UNESCO Science and Technology Public Policy Laboratory, to participate in the dialogue, who will share their experiences on the subject with us, based on the following triggers:
• Challenges of S&T policy at the subnational level
• Main axes of work of its management
• The program they worked on in the Lab
• How has that program changed since then and what was the influence of the analysis done in the Laboratory?
Francisco Medina Gomez, General Director, State Council of Science and Technology – COECYTJAL (Jalisco, Mexico), Federico Morabito, Director of Innovation & Economic Development, Government of Mendoza, Argentina, and Marina Baima, Secretary of Science, Technology and Innovation, Province of Santa Fe (Argentina), will address these topics, moderated by Guillermo Anllo (UNESCO).
The Colloquium will be an opportunity to present the documents arising from PoliCyTLab (Latin American Laboratory of Public Science and Technology Policies) of UNESCO, where various cases developed in the various editions of the Laboratory are analyzed.
NOV 15 – 5 p.m. (URU/ARG/BRA) – sign up here to receive a notification about the start of the meeting and other activities of the CILAC Forum