South Africa and Italy have signed a new programme of cooperation for the next three years, committing to intensive collaboration in science, technology and innovation (STI). The cooperation will see the science communities of the two countries collaborating in biotechnology, medicine and health, nanotechnology, new advanced materials, information and communication technology, the environmental sciences, and radio astronomy.
Senior officials from the two countries met in Pretoria to review and plan new priorities for collaboration under the science and technology agreement signed by Italy and South Africa in 1998.
The countries agreed to strengthen cooperation in support of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project. The Medicina Radio Observatory, operated by the Radio Astronomy Institute of Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics, is collaborating closely with the SKA team in Cape Town on data acquisition and processing, among other things.
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