During the First National Conference for Iraqi Scholarship Students, His Excellency, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Naeem Abd Yaser Al-Aboudi announced a package of exceptional decisions supporting Iraqi scholarship students from international universities.

Dr. Al-Aboudi reviewed that the decisions taken are in line with the vision and mission of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, which has devoted positive efforts during this period, resulting in unprecedented decisions that serve the interests of scholarship students.

The decisions are:

First: Counting the period of study outside Iraq for academic promotion purposes.

Second: Cancelling the postponement of contractual obligations for those who have obtained a sabbatical to allow scholarship students to communicate with their countries of study and scholarship to continue their research work and sustain international cooperation.

Third: Forming a higher ministerial committee under the supervision of the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, with membership from the senior staff to review the number of returning faculty members and facilitate their appointment to positions and posts in Iraqi universities.

Fourth: Involving all returning faculty members in teaching, supervision and discussions in postgraduate studies, the Supervision and Scientific Evaluation Apparatus will monitor this decision.

Fifth: Assigning and selecting faculty members from the scholarships to teach at the newly established Colleges of Artificial Intelligence and Excellence at the University of Baghdad.

Sixth: Tasking the Department of Studies and Planning with creating a platform for direct communication with scholarship students.

His Excellency urged all universities to represent scholarship students on scientific committees and to assign this group to submit qualitative studies on the developmental issues facing our country, including the exploitation of associated gas, improving water resource management, combating desertification and environmental pollution and promoting sustainable cities.

Dr. Al-Aboudi directed the Supervision and Scientific Evaluation Apparatus to conduct the annual evaluation of university leaders according to criteria and grades, some of which relate to the investment of scholarship students' energies and scientific potential.

His Excellency highlighted that the activities of the first national conference for Iraqi scholarship students included a statistical presentation on the number of scholarship students in Iraqi universities and their academic impact, delivered by the Deputy of the Ministry for Scientific Research Affairs, Dr. Haider Abd Dhahd.

Dr. Al-Aboudi also reviewed the opinions related to the challenges facing scholarship students and ways to overcome them in light of the ministerial decisions taken.

For his part, Director General of Studies, Planning and Follow-up, Dr. Hazem Abdul Razzaq delivered speeches on investing the energies of scholarship students.

It is worth to be mentioned that the conference was attended by senior members of the Ministry, university presidents and institute and a large crowd of scholarship students.