From 22 to 25 November, the National University of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (Unstim) in Abomey is organising its first scientific symposium. The event is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Gérard DEGAN and is coupled with the Journées des métiers. Through this conference, UNSTIM intends to bring together the scientific world of Benin and elsewhere around the theme “Technological Innovations in Science Technology and Mathematics (STEM): levers for the industrial development of Benin”. Rector Joachim Djimon Gbenou and his team are already working hard to ensure the success of the work.
The present conference has three main objectives:
- To provide a framework for exchanges between the various participants around innovative interests;
- Implementing research strategies, improving methodologies and writing techniques for communication and research output;
- Strengthen the mechanisms of collaboration or partnership between academic and industrial actors and the mode of valorisation of research results and technological innovations;
During this meeting, conferences and debates, technology exhibitions and scientific communication workshops will be animated by eminent professors and researchers. This will allow UNSTIM’s training entities to really find themselves in a framework of research and analysis for a better set up of the training offers and consequently, a certain visibility.
Specifically, these four days should lead to the promotion of inter-entity, inter-teacher and inter-university mixing. The work should also facilitate the coordination of research programs and the valorisation of research results within UNSTIM. Not to mention the establishment of a mechanism for operating and seeking funding within the university.
Coordinated by the vice-rector in charge of university research, Professor Comlan Aristide Houngan, the organisation of this colloquium is part of a context where UNSTIM wants to provide itself with a framework of motivation for teachers in research, improvement and professionalism. Aware of the important role that research plays in the development of local communities, the management team of this university intends to give the actors, in this case the teachers, a taste for scientific production, innovation and the valorisation of research results.
It should be added that one of the main ambitions of Rector Joachim Djimon Gbenou and his team is to make UNSTIM a university open to the outside world through scientific and technical partnerships, national/international training activities and dissemination of research results. This initiative also requires the involvement of the entire university community. This is because it requires the establishment of a logic whose purpose is to make the research results solid and sustainable.
Consequently, this 1st International Symposium of UNSTIM Abomey constitutes an opportunity to boost the scientific mix at UNSTIM but also an ideal framework to exchange with the promoters of companies and the local authorities for a better consideration of the interests of the populations of Benin, Africa and the whole world. It is also intended to be a platform for the valorisation of research and innovation results. That is to say, a set of activities designed to bring together the actors of the national and international academic world around a common interest so that they can develop a common synergy, following the brand and the impulse that make research unique.
