During a meeting with the researchers, His Excellency, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Naeem Abd Yaser Al-Aboudi honored the researchers who won the award for scientific research on climate and its impact on security, stability and sustainability in Iraq.

Dr. Al-Aboudi stressed the importance of linking scientific research aspects to the requirements of sustainable development, whose objectives are distributed across the environmental, economic and social fields.

His Excellency reviewed that the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research pays intense attention to the contribution of universities in achieving the highest level of responding to the global development goals of the United Nations, which our academic institutions obtained competitive score in the Times Sustainable Development Ranking, which showed Iraq ranked seventh in the world.

Dr. Al-Aboudi added that institutions of higher education and scientific research possess visions and solutions embodied by specialists, including professors and graduate students, through solid scientific research to confront urgent challenges, especially those related to environmental and climate variables.

His Excellency continued by saying that the Iraqi government is interested in supporting scientific research with solid international publications.

Dr. Al-Aboudi added that the Ministry adopts a special policy and a qualitative interest in scientific research by honoring researchers with sums of money and certificates of appreciation to encourage publication in international journals affiliated with (Nature and Science Journals) and ( TOP Journals in Shanghai Ranking).

His Excellency also honored an amount of five million and a certificate of appreciation to ten winning researchers from the universities of Baghdad, Southern Technical University, Thi-Qar, Al-Qadisiyah, Kufa, Wasit, Karbala, Al-Hamdaniyah and Dijlah.

Dr. Al-Aboudi renewed the progress of strengthening scientific publishing spaces and expanding the circle of specialized research related in providing scientific treatments that would contribute in providing sustainable solutions to climate change problems.

His Excellency continued that the Iraqi scientific publishing index in academic institutions has become noticeably increasing because the interest of our universities in strengthening their balance in scientific research and competing in international rankings clearly indicates the strengthening of academic reputation and the provision of climates of openness and global communication.

Dr. Al-Aboudi demonstrated that the Union of Arab Scientific Research Councils will inaugurate its headquarters in the Capital, Baghdad soon.

It is worth to be mentioned that the meeting was attended by the Director General of Research and Development, Dr. Lubna Khamis Mahdi.