ISTC Talks Environment at the Russian State Duma
ISTC and the Russian Parliament Center held a joint workshop on "The Development of International Science and Technology Cooperation in Environmental Protection" on April 3-4 at the Russian State Duma in Moscow. The event brought together ISTC’s funding countries along with over 100 leading Russian scientists and experts on environmental investigations (atmospheric air, surface water, ground and soil), Federal Assembly and Russian Federation Authority representatives, and members of the media. Delegates discussed how to further cooperate within the framework of the ISTC Program Environment Remediation and Climate Change Mitigation.
Issues related to the environment make up the largest element of the 14 technology areas within the ISTC. By April 2008, 420 projects were approved for funding representing US$131 million provided by the ISTC Parties and Partners, which represents about 16.7% of the ISTC project budget.
Workshop materials were published in the magazines Ecology and Russian Industry, ECOS, Integral - in order to inform the scientific and engineering communities.
The Key Objectives of the Meeting were:
- To inform high-ranking authorities, including those of the western countries, about state-of-the-art programs on atmospheric air, surface water, ground and soil investigations
- To coordinate the activities planned by the Government and ISTC in the area of international science and technology cooperation on solving the environmental safety problems
- To reveal acute problems which were not solved when implementing the national and international programs, including normative and legal basis for carrying out observations
- To make recommendations on determining RF priorities in the area of science and technology and international cooperation on environment protection
To consider proposals to involve the ISTC in international cooperation work related to ecology and environmental safety