Algeria: Closure of unproductive scientific laboratories and halt to funding

The Director General of Scientific Research of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Abdelhafid Aourag, said Tuesday that all scientific laboratories that do not work properly will be stripped of funding, pointing to the emergence from now onwards of national and local laboratories on the basis of a set of clear-cut criteria and conditions.

The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, has conducted an overall census for the purpose by classifying and cleansing the labs across the country’s university institutions, in order to give a strong boost to production in accordance with the requirements of the times and the current juncture experienced by Algeria.

This came out at the close of a broad-based meeting chaired by the General Director of Scientific Research Professor Abdelhafid Aourag together with eastern-based laboratory managers at the level of the University of Constantine, who unanimously spoke out in favour of the closure forthwith of all the laboratories that are not active and unproductive and which have become a financial burden weighing hard on the relevant ministry.

Accordingly, this decision will deprive the useless laboratories of the funding in the first phase and then they will be shut down completely, in a clear reference to the need to intensify scientific efforts and the development of research, with on focus the necessity to adapt this scientific research with the economic, social and political juncture by making  the Algerian university tally with the fast-evolving economic and social environment in order to be able to spur viable partnerships for the sake of national and local development.