Cuban industry becomes science

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 25 (ACN) The Cuban government met with executives and specialists of the Ministry of Industries (MINDUS) to discuss the development of the national industry through innovation and science, based on the contribution of its workers, experts and scientists, and the establishment of synergies with research centers and universities.

"Industry with science" was the motto of the first meeting of this kind, headed by the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez; Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, and Deputy Prime Ministers Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez and Inés María Chapman Waugh.

As part of the systematization of the government-scientist dialogues, which are increasingly turning the "Palace of the Revolution into a palace of science", as Díaz-Canel said, MINDUS directors, led by its minister, Eloy Álvarez Martínez, presented concepts and results regarding the use of innovation to modernize the national industry, gradually but steadily.

MINDUS is the "umbrella" of light industry, recycling, electronics and automation, chemicals, metal-mechanics and iron and steel. It covers 51 activities and 345 types of products and services. It has ten science entities and maintains close links with 46 other central government agencies.
Through its close working ties with the Ministries of Science, Technology and the Environment (CITMA) and of Higher Education, MINDUS is currently engaged in some 200 science and innovation projects, more than 120 of them with universities. Among the sector's recent results are the Cuban 3D printer, the generation of fuels through pyrolysis and the manufacture of equipment to generate so-called atmospheric water.

The President of the Republic, who made a brief presentation of the Government Management System based on Science and Innovation, oriented that the doctors and masters, who have the agency, as well as those who obtain those categories from now on, focus on solving the problems of the country's industrial system and to satisfy the domestic market.

"It is not about getting a degree, but about applying the knowledge" -he clarified-. He indicated to order the innovative results that have been accumulated in the sector and those that are being obtained, to promote new doctorates and master's degrees, because those are contributions and knowledge that must be taken advantage of, he said.