French scientists strengthen ties with PNG University staff and students

French Scientists Strengthen Ties With PNG University Staff And Students

FOUR French scientists from Paris and Noumea are in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to engage with local scientists and university students and academics in developing initiatives for long-term collaboration and analysis of human activities within the region.
Their visit culminated from a visit to PNG by French President Emmanuel Macron in July where a joint declaration was signed with the Government.
The declaration agreed for both countries to work hand-in-hand and formulate a country package on nature, forest and climate.
A media statement about the visit said the scientists included Laurent Durieux and Marc Despinoy from the French research institute for sustainable development’s Geospatial4PICTS programme based in New Caledonia and Insight Solutions Geospatiales director Jean Massenet and project manager Pearl Winchester.

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“This mission has laid groundwork for future collaboration, addressing challenges and strengthening interest in sustained scientific partnerships between France and PNG,” it said.
Areas for collaboration included:

• TRAINING and scientist exchange: Concrete collaboration opportunities were identified in training and scientist exchanges, especially with the closer New Caledonia;
• DIGITAL transformation: Initiatives around digital transformation for impactful research on sustainable development, including hackathons and challenges in collaboration with the Department of Information and Communication Technology;
• DATA acquisition and management: Collaboration prospects in acquiring new data and establishing data management infrastructures.
  Participants highlighted challenges related to accessing outdated, scattered and poorly-shared data; and,
• REGIONAL scientific cooperation: Strengthening regional scientific cooperation dynamics through workshops and other activities.
  “There are two identified ongoing New Caledonia-based projects currently being developed in the region, Geospatial4PICTS and the Melanesian Forest Observatory, which will be the key contributors to the country package initiative.

The delegations met with the vice-chancellors of the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) and PNG University of Technology (Unitech) who expressed eagerness to sign memorandum of understandings with the French research institutions in strengthening long-term partnerships.
“They drew more attention from Unitech because of its historical collaboration with IRD and ART GEODEV in New Caledonia while viewing it as a scientific contribution to the country package as an opportunity to benefit from support and network expansion,” it said.

The National / PNG Education news

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