Is it possible to implement STI strategy without scientific cooperation? 

The globalization of research has allowed the emergence of national elites at the forefront of knowledge and technological progress. This action has become possible thanks to the rise of cross-border scientific networks facilitated by the development of digital technology and the pooling of large research infrastructures that have become excessively expensive to be financed by a single country.

it is widely accepted that International cooperation produces appreciable results as confirmed by the trend of co-authorship of scientific papers and their influence on the quality and ranking of training and research institutions. This partnership in science is more dynamic between northern countries, at a time when the elites of the developing countries are struggling to access research laboratories or to establish collaborations with their counterparts in Europe or North America. Times have changed a lot. To the mobility and massive exchanges of researchers and students in the 1980s, a defiant attitude towards the communities of the southern countries happened with the introduction of a very selective policy for visas delivery.

Today, the challenge is to join thematic networks through international programs like horizon2020, or to setup bilateral institutional partnerships which is linked to political strategies. To join these binding networks, national scientists have to invest in cutting-edge disciplines that does not necessarily meet national priorities. The challenge is to focus on teamwork, multidisciplinarity, and co-supervision of PhD theses with superviser from foreign institutions. The new published texts on laboratories of excellence, and the thematic networks, by the directorate general of scientific research and technological developement in august 2019, will require new approachs based on self ability to find funding for scientific cooperation. Many actions are expected, some driven by researchers through academic social networks, conferences participation,  co-publications,  and the other by the establishment of an institutional mechanism supervised by experts in scientific cooperation and international partnership. This strategy could be assisted  by our large committed diaspora for opening the doors of their hosted institutions to deepen and broaden this fundamental strategy. The problem remaining is to build trust and to mobilise the research communities in the respect of IP rules.  

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