During the workshop of launching the second report to follow up the national development plan in Iraq, His Excellency, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Nabeel Kadim Abid Al-Sahib said that science and knowledge in the current stage have reached a stage of top importance that outweighs the power of capital presence and foundation in the field of development strategies and setting priorities responsible for the stages of development. Dr. Abid Al-Sahib added that the need to respect time in the development movement, enhance knowledge acquisition of human resources, integrate institutions and cooperate with international organizations to achieve development goals. His Excellency reviewed that development programs cannot achieve their goals without a quality education system and that the Higher Education sector represents the basic scientific engine for all sectors of the State. Dr. Abid Al-Sahib highlighted that the development movement in all countries of the world is closely related to its scientific engines and educational incubators with clear lines and personalized goals that start from the needs of the community, addressing economic and social problems, formulating scientific solutions to them, moving towards innovation spaces and providing specialized consultations and research services that take into account the requirements of comprehensive development plans. His Excellency also reviewed that the development programs cannot achieve their goals without a high-quality education system that possesses the efficiency and flexibility that make it able to meet the needs of society and keep pace with the scientific and technical changes and developments responsible for progress and development. Dr. Abid Al-Sahib continued by saying that Iraqi academic institutions have been enhancing their balance of specialized research and achieving advanced competitive positions in international ranking, especially the Times Ranking for Sustainable Development, which works on evaluating universities through the goals of the United Nations, including quality of education, health, partnerships, industry, innovation and climate action. His Excellency demonstrated that the results of the Times ranking for 2021, it showed competitive scores for thirty-seven Iraqi governmental and private universities and colleges according to the indicators and goals of the United Nations in supervision, awareness, and education of the sustainable development goals. Dr. Abid Al-Sahib said that the universities have strengthened their position in global websites and raised their published research to more than eighty thousand international researches so this makes the opportunities for employing the results of such research more comprehensive and responsive to applications given the important scientific values that these results hold. His Excellency praised the achievement of Iraqi researchers and academics and their efforts in formulating this global achievement and their great contribution to raise the name of Iraqi universities in international forums despite the decline in the financial aspects allocated for scientific research in the general budget. His Excellency stressed on that Iraqi researchers and innovators succeeded in taking into account the requirements of development and providing an environment for exchange and cross-exchanging experiences and positively employing them in developmental areas based on knowledge, skill and education. The workshop included a number of participations by the representative of the Ministry of Higher Education in the Kurdistan Region, Dr. Muhammad Hussein Ahmed, Deputy Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mr. Rochus Pronk, Head of the Cooperation Department of the European Union Commission, Mrs. Barbara Ecker and the Director of the Spark Program, Mr. Firas Deeb. For his part, Ministry’s deputy for Scientific Research Affairs, Dr. Yassin Muhammad Hamad Al-Ithawi said that the second report to follow up the national development plan included main objectives represented in improving the international ranking of Iraqi universities, developing the academic aspect of institutions, rebuilding and rehabilitating them and strengthening partnership with the private sector. For his part, Director General of the Studies, Planning and Follow-up, Dr. Ihab Naji Abbas confirmed that the Ministry was able to accomplish its programs and commitments according to what was included in the national development plan to face problems, challenges and changes. It is worth mentioning that the workshop reviewed the second report to follow up on the national development plan of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research for the previous two academic years, which was presented by the Strategies Department in the Directorate of Studies, Planning and Follow-up, which I indicated during the presentation the percentage of achievement of the activities related to the four goals, depending on the performance indicators for each activity, where the total number of activities reached seven twenty activities and forty-eight indicators within the context of the advanced achievement of the majority of academic programs and activities achieved during the past two academic years despite the challenges of the health and economic situation.