21st Meeting of the ROLAC Regional Committee held in Havana, Cuba

ICSU and ICSU ROLAC representatives as well as Cuban and Salvadorian authorities met in the 21st Regional Committee Meeting. The meeting was held on April 17-18, 2017 at the Hotel Nacional  in Havana, Cuba.  Besides having the attendance of five members of the Regional Committee (Dr. Juan Jaen, Dr. Liliam Alvarez, M.Sc. Ana Rada, Dr. Elisa Reis, Dr. German Poveda), ICSU ROLAC Secretariat members: Dr. Manuel Limonta, Lic. Claudia Marroquin, Licda. Karla Rodríguez and Lic. Oscar Reyes; the meeting was attended by Heide Hackmann, ICSU Executive Director, Geoffrey Boulton, CODATA Director, Fidel Castro Díaz-Ballart, Science Advisor for the Presidency; Dr. Ismael Clark, President of the Cuban Academy of Sciences; Dr. Juan Vela Valdés, Former Minister of Higher Education; Dr. Rolando Forneiro, Vice minister of Education; and Lic. Sergio Pastrana, former ICSU Vice-President.

Day one of the meeting went on smoothly. At the very beginning of the meeting, the Chair of the Committee, Juan Jaen and Manuel Limonta, Regional Director welcome all the participants of the meeting. Then Cuban authorities welcomed participants as well and briefly presented about Science and Technology development in Cuba. Soon after, the attendees listened to Dr. Erlinda Handal, Vice Minister of Science and Technology from El Salvador, present about the development of Science and Technology in El Salvador.  Thereupon, Heide Hackmann presented about the ICSU-ISSC merger, followed by a question and answer session. Finally, the Regional Committee was able to hear about the evolution of the ROLAC in El Salvador and about the work on done in the priority areas and outreach activities in the November 2016- April 2017 period.

The second and last day of the meeting was very productive. Once the meeting started, Manuel Limonta and Heide Hackmann presented about the International Network of Government Science Advice (INGSA) and then discuss with the rest of the attendees about ICSU ROLAC’s participation in the activity. Then, the RC members were able to discuss about fundraising, ways of identifying champions in the region, review overlooking responsibilities among the members, and ICSU ROLAC 2017 business plan.  Afterwards, Geoffrey Boulton presented about “Realising the potential of Open Data and Open Science”. Then, Karla Rodríguez presented the administrative report for the November 2016- April 2017 period, followed by the communications report for the same period, presented by Oscar Reyes. Later, the members of the Regional Committee were able to go over the list of agreements, give recommendations arisen from the general discussion, agree on place and date of the RCLAC22. Finally, the chair, Juan Jaen and Manuel Limonta wrapped up the meeting by thanking all attendees.