"Science and innovation are fundamental pillars of our government work, in all areas, in all state agencies, in all enterprises and at all levels, from the community to the Presidency of the Republic," stated Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, during his inaugural remarks opening the University 2022 International Congress, on February 7, the event’s 13th edition.
The President described Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz as the founder of revolutionary science in our nation and the driving force behind the accomplishments in education, health and scientific research that distinguish the nation.
As a close and forceful example, given the incalculable impact it had on safeguarding the Cuban population, he referred to the rapid response of national science to the combined negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the genocidal opportunism of the U.S. blockade.
He emphasized how, with minimal resources, the country’s scientific and technological community created five candidate vaccines, three of which are now approved as vaccines, allowing for 87.9% of the island’s population to be fully immunized.
Díaz-Canel noted the progress this implied in terms of technological autonomy, as also occurred with the manufacture of our own ventilators, which allowed Cuba to overcome obstacles created by the blockade to the importing of spare parts and equipment.
Based on lessons learned during the pandemic, he said, we will improve our health system and strengthen the medical-pharmaceutical industry, which must be increasingly prepared to respond to the needs of the population and guarantee reasonable levels of technological autonomy.
He also referred to food sovereignty, which has been the focus of systematic work since the first half of 2020, with emphasis on the urgently-needed application of scientific findings.
Capacity building, training of all economic actors, including local governments, and the use of knowledge in municipal management for the implementation of development policies at the local level as key, were all identified as issues to be addressed by the President.
After a 2021 in which Cuba faced the combination of COVID-19, the tightened U.S. blockade, soft coup attempts and a media war, the Revolution has once again emerged victorious, overcoming these challenges, the President stressed.
We move forward aware that the biggest problems are yet to be solved, and that new ones are on the horizon, but we have learned that science and innovation have answers, he concluded.
At a later point, the Cuban President inaugurated an exhibition at the International University 2022 Congress, a conclave which attracted some 204 international participants from more than 34 countries, as well as ministers, vice ministers, rectors, higher education authorities and other figures, both in person and online.
