Photo: Vladimir Molina Espada

Havana, February 7 (RHC/PL)-- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel affirmed that the university-science relationship and dialogue with the knowledge sector and the country's main development programs are the basis of the government management system in Cuba,

At the inaugural conference of the International University Congress 2022, on Monday in Havana, the president emphasized the conditions aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased inequalities and the growing power of transnational capital, while threats to peace and national security grew.

The head of state insisted that 61 percent of the population has received at least one dose of anti-COVID-19 vaccine, but in lower-income nations this has only reached 10 percent of their inhabitants.

It is these realities that make even more urgent the need to strengthen the links between government management and science, which in Cuba is evident in the strengthening between the knowledge sector and the goods and services sector, as well as in the institutional and organizational forms that support the activities of science, technology and improvement.

The bases of this system are the long Cuban educational tradition, the content of government programs, the vision of the nation until 2030 and the debates on sustainable development.

"We are considering the need to convert knowledge into transforming social forces. It's not about having more science, it's about those capacities allowing us to have a prosperous, sustainable and fair development," he said.

The University Congress 2022 is being held at the Palacio de Convenciones of this capital city to discuss the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals, the university-business link, knowledge management, the role of student and union organizations, and the training of competent professionals.