GRC Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting 2018 was held in Tehran

The 2018 Regional Meeting, for the Asia-Pacific region, was held on November 21-22 in Tehran, Iran, hosted by Iran National Science Foundation (INSF). Fifteen delegates from research funding organizations, including Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), German Research Foundation (DFG), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand (MBIE), Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) attended the meeting.

The focus of the meeting on the first day was on “Research Impact”. The GRC introduced two approaches to the topic: “Societal and Economic Impact as Funding Criteria” and “Assessing and Demonstrating the Impact of Research on the Advancement of Knowledge, on Society, and on Economy”. The delegates discussed these approaches and shared experiences they had in their organizations regarding the topic at hand.

The second day of the meeting was devoted to “Equality and Status of Women in Research”. The GRC established a Gender Working Group in 2016 with the goal of improving equality and status of women in research in the 5 regions of the globe – Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East/North Africa – as well as providing an atmosphere for GRC members to share their experience and activities in this regard. In 2018 and 2019, the focus of this working group will be on providing success stories GRC members have had in supporting and enhancing the status of women in research around the globe.

The majority of the GRC members present in the meeting asserted that they had specialized committees and programs to pave the way for gaining such equality and diversity. The INSF is not an exception; we announced the establishment of INSF Gender Working Group, with the aim of building the capacity, culture and opportunity to promote the status of women in research. INSF GWG has officially started working from December 2018.