The Academy of Scientific Research granted 500 scholarships in different scientific specializations to youths who graduated with high marks and have not found a job yet in the different universities and research centers. The Minister of Higher Education and the State for Scientific Research Hany Helal said yesterday at a press conference at the Academy that the scholarships granted to young graduates are financed by the State. He pointed out that large sums are available to carry out scientific research, adding, though, that such research lacks quality and competitiveness. "In Egypt, we've got more funds than we can actually use" he said, refusing the idea of granting any money to any researcher without these two criteria (quality and competitiveness). Academy President Tarek Hussein said the scholarships aim to qualify those graduates, rely on their different research and link them to industrial enterprises, and enhance scientific research and technology. He said the final goal is to build a knowledge-based economy in the future, pointing out that those scholarships had been granted in cooperation with a faculty staff development program, the Supreme Council of Universities and the Information and Communication Technology Project (ICTP).
