The Executive Director of the Science and Technological Advancement Fund, Dr. Mahnmoud Saqr, has recently announced that next September will witness a call for joint Russo-Egyptian research project proposals in the fields of agriculture, health, mathematics and nuclear physics. Winning projects shall be announced in November and implementation is scheduled to begin early in 2014, Dr. Saqr said. Within the framework of the agreement signed in Moscow recently on scientific and technological co-operation between the Fund and the Russian Science Foundation, scientists and researchers of the two countries will collaborate in research projects covering the said areas which involve multifaceted problems. As the traditional approaches to research are often inadequate, larger efforts require collaborative approaches. In some cases, individual investigators will need to attract and coordinate expertise in different disciplines and approaches, and may require access to specialised resources, such as computational facilities, high throughput technologies, and equipment. Hence, collaboration is the answer to major research problems. By definition, collaborative research is any research project that is undertaken by at least two people. It occurs in many ways, and is more common in some fields than others. It is very common in the sciences and less so in the humanities. Moreover, it occurs locally as well as at regional and international levels. When done in the right spirit, collaborative research brings about more reliable and powerful results that come out to publication faster than they would if the research were conducted independently. Researchers involved in collaborative work can pool their knowledge and critique each other's contribution before starting the publication process. Agreements such as the one referred to here provide an effective mechanism to support such collaborative and interactive activities. Almost all countries of the world have become deeply interested in collaborative research. Beside having their own research institutions, nations also tend to encourage collaborative and integrative approaches to research, especially research into such sensitive issues directly affecting the life of peoples as energy, climate change, pollution, water, ecology and natural resources. In addition to the immeasurable gains of collaborative research, it will certainly help the individuals involved understand each other better. The same applies to bilateral and multilateral research, and hence it can provide yet another instrument to advance mutual understanding, friendship and peace in the world.
