Launched in January, the France-Egypt Cultural Year 2019 is an opportunity to highlight the respective achievements of the two countries and promote dialogue between them. It was in this spirit that Egypt‘s National Research Centre (NRC) and Grenoble‘s Institute of Engineering (Grenoble INP) – with Grenoble INP-Pagora / LGP2 acting as project managers – organised ICSSD 2019 (International Conference on Science and Sustainable Development, 16-18 September 2019, Cairo) on the theme “There can never be sustainable development without science“.
The longstanding scientific cooperation between the two institutions was reinforced by the signing of an agreement in April 2018. The conference was held under the aegis of Prof. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Minister for Higher Education and Research, Stéphane Romatet, French Ambassador to Egypt, Prof. Mohamed M. Hashem, President of the National Research Centre in Egypt and Prof. Naceur Belgacem, Director of Grenoble INP-Pagora, and under the leadership of Prof. Mamdouh Moawad, Vice President for Research & International Relations at the National Research Centre in Egypt. The opening ceremony was attended by 500 people.
Exploring topics as diverse as industry & innovation, water management, environment & climate change, food security, energy and public health, a number of international experts presented the results of research conducted within the scope of the Sustainable Development Objectives adopted by the UN. A cross-disciplinary conference, ICSSD 2019 focused on the sustainable solutions provided by science to ensure that, by 2030, future generations will benefit from socially equitable development that is both environmentally sound and economically prosperous.
In addition to Profs. Naceur Belgacem and Alain Dufresne, several members of the Grenoble INP-Pagora delegation, including a number of doctoral students, played an active part in the conference by presenting the progress achieved by the LGP2 laboratory‘s research.
