Mexican IIASA membership negotiations advance

Kabat met with Dr. Enrique Cabrero Mendoza, Director General of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT). CONACYT is Mexico's entity in charge of the promotion of scientific and technological activities, setting government policies for these matters, and granting scholarships for postgraduate studies. It is officially designated as a decentralized public agency of Mexico's federal government. CONACYT is spearheading the negotiations to become one of IIASA’s many National Member Organizations (NMOs).

Kabat also met with Dr Eduardo Sojo, President of The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), Professor Mario Molina, co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and senior government officials from the environment ministry.  They discussed how IIASA and Mexico could collaborate in the future. The work of INEGI ties in closely with research within IIASA’s World Population Program and the environment ministry showed great interest in IIASA’s new flagship project Water Futures and Solutions: World Water Scenarios.

IIASA has a long history of collaboration with researchers in Mexico. In 2006, a symposium was held in Mexico where more than 30 researchers presented work related to air pollution, population, risk and vulnerability, evolution and ecology, energy, and land use change, all core research areas at IIASA. Recent collaborations with Mexico include a study of financial preparedness for natural disasters. Another IIASA study examined the sustainability of the aquifers supplying water to Mexico City in the context of its rapidly growing urban population. IIASA’s World Population Program has also developed literate life expectancy indicators for the social development of the Mexican population, as well as probabilistic methodology to project the Mexican population.

Postdoctoral fellowship relaunched

Following these meetings IIASA are also pleased to relaunch the Luis Donaldo Colosio Fellowship.  This postdoctoral scholarship was initially established in 1994, in memory of former colleague Luis Donaldo Colosio, who was assassinated on 23 March 1994 while campaigning in Tijuana for the office of President of Mexico. IIASA will be inviting applications from Mexican citizens for the opportunity to spend six to twelve months at IIASA, working with scholars from around the world, as Colosio himself did, and pursuing Colosio's dream of harnessing the science of the industrialized North to address the problems of the developing South. For more details please see our Postdoctoral Program. 

The IIASA delegation met with representatives of CONACYT in Mexico last week.

Professor Dr Pavel Kabat, IIASA CEO/Director, Dr Eduardo Sojo, President of INEGI, and Alberto Ortega y Venzor, of the Office of the President for Public Policy

Last edited: 14 May 2013