The Syrian Arab Republic, represented by:
• Dr. Ahmed Yaghi, Head of the Scientific Relations Bureau at the General Authority for Remote Sensing.
• Dr. Yumn Atassi, Center for Studies and Scientific Research.
Participated in the regional virtual consultative meeting for open sciences on August, 24th, 2020 together with more than 100 scientists and experts from the League of Arab States, representatives of the National Commissions of UNESCO, members of the UNESCO Advisory Commission for Open Science from the Arab Region, representatives of the scientific and research bodies from the Arab countries which are members at UNESCO and representatives and high-level experts from UNESCO. The meeting aimed at discussing the best strategies and approaches to advance the open science agendas in the Arab region.
This meeting was based on the discussions and recommendations of the "virtual ministerial dialogue about COVID-19, open science and the international scientific cooperation which was hosted by UNESCO on March 30th, 2020; as well as on the results of the informative meeting which was held via the Internet on April 16th, 2020; with the permanent delegates of UNESCO regarding the confirmation response of the natural science sector to deal with the emerging coronavirus-19 crisis.
Some themes which were discussed through the presentations and interventions:
- Strategic directions, approaches, and implementation actions to advance open science concepts and practices through the activation of the proposed "UNESCO Regional Science Platform in the Arab Region".
- Shedding light on the necessary transformation to make the access to the scientific data more accessible and open to society in order to bridge the scientific gap between the developing and the advanced countries.
- The upcoming UNESCO recommendations concerning the open learning such as defining and describing the main components of the open learning along with identifying the main stakeholders at the national, regional and international levels.
- Reviewing of the proposed "UNESCO Regional Science Platform in the Arab Region: Towards the Open Learning in the Arab Region and the World" initiative, and explaining its main objectives.
- The results of the UNESCO global surveys on open learning, and the perspective of the Arab Region about these findings in terms of the main regional focus points on the open learning as well as the probable obstacles that may limit the scope of the use of the open learning initiative in the region including the lack of capacity building programs, the large shortage of researchers, equipped laboratories and research centers, the inability to provide investments and funds directed to research and development.
The discussions and presentations resulted in the following conclusions and recommendations:
- The necessity to focus on the following factors in order to support the open learning initiative in the region.
o Defining the principles and values of the open learning in a more focused manner.
o Expanding the regional participation of the science community and increasing awareness and communication to build a regional culture about open learning.
o The need to adopt policies, strategies and legal frameworks for scientific research and innovation through the relevant institutions and bodies to enhance scientific cooperation at the national and regional levels.
o Establishing the required infrastructure, for example, warehouses, computing servers, and open source software as well as developing programs for building the necessary capabilities in analyzing and figuring out data.
- The need to explore and support open learning opportunities, deal with challenges and promote best practices from the global and regional perspectives for Sustainable Development in the Arab Region with a special focus on finding solutions to the complex social and economic issues such as climate change, coronavirus-19, natural rains, and health issues.
- The need to expand the use of information and communication technology and attain advancement in digital infrastructure that provides a lot of opportunities for open learning.
- Encouraging and strengthening the concept of participatory learning by adopting comprehensive and participatory approaches within the framework of the scientific research cycle including increasing the levels of citizen participation in the scientific processes, data evaluation and designing of the joint projects and ownership of results.
- The importance of forming scientific partnerships at the regional and international levels and uniting efforts among the various open learning networks at the national, regional and global levels as well as cooperating with existing regional and international organizations including the national commissions of UNESCO and the Arab League in order to face urgent development challenges as in the situation of the corona virus.
- The need to support the participation of young researchers in shaping open learning policies and practices.
- The need to align the current planned open learning activities with the implementation framework of the Arab Strategy for the scientific and technological research and innovation which were approved by the relevant councils of the member states of the Arab League.
- Welcoming the initiative of "UNESCO Regional Science Platform in the Arab Region: Towards the Open Learning in the Arab Region and the World", and working to establish it taking into account the results of the meeting and the observations of the participants and representatives of the Arab countries, the Arab National Commissions of UNESCO and the Arab League.
- Strengthening the cooperation with the UNESCO Advisory Commission about the open learning in the Arab Region.
- Enhancing communication with partnerships to work on activating the recommendations of the global virtual ministerial dialogue about coronavirus-19 and the open learning at the Arab regional level.