The International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), in recent years has been steadfast in carrying out activities promoting the actualization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), writes Abdulsalam MAHMUD.
On Poverty
Brazil, India and China represents the top three countries in terms of number of participating scientists that have benefitted from ICTP’s education research activities.
On Zero Hunger
ICTP’s Wireless Technologies Laboratory has organized a number of workshops throughout the developing world on application for the internet of things, including how networks of sensors could help farmers decide when to use precious water resources to water their crops, helping to promote sustainable agriculture.
On Good Health and Wellbeing
Through its Masters in Medical Physics, ICTP trains specialists in the use of diagnostic equipment, closing the cancer care inequity gap.
On Quality Education
For more than 50 years, ICTP has educated thousands of developing country scientists in physics and mathematics, providing them valuable, unique opportunities. Thanks to ICTP’s Postgraduate Diploma Programme, for example, hundreds of students from less advantaged countries have acquired the knowledge and skills they need to advance their scientific careers and many have gone on to earn PhDs from international universities.
On Gender Equality
ICTP strives to increase the participation and representation of women in physics; its ‘Career Development Workshop for Women in Physics’ offers training sessions on crucial non-technical skills that women physicists may otherwise have less opportunity to acquire than their male peers, and that are fundamental to overcome the gender bias that exists in the scientific academic world.
On Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
ICTP has established a ‘Sustainable Energy Research Group’ to address the scientific challenges of providing cheap and clean energy to the world. The group is hunting for alternative ways to harvest the sun’s energy, testing new models by modelling molecular interactions of functional materials using supercomputers. The goal is to find a way to make solar cells economically viable for developing countries.
On Decent Work and Economic Growth
ICTP provides the education and training that physicists and mathematicians from around the world need to establish and maintain productive careers and promote sustainable science in their home countries.
On Climate Action
Researchers in ICTP’s Earth System Physics section perform climate simulations on regional and global scales, the result of which inform major global initiatives such as the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Assessment Report”.
On Partnership for SDGs
ICTP is one of the founding partners of the United Nations’ International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD2022). The designated year puts a focus on the important – but largely underappreciated – role that basic sciences plays in nearly every aspect of our lives, and on the crucial role they can have in the construction of a sustainable future.