The Algerian government has approved plans to spend $1.48 billion on scientific research over a five-year period. The first phase of the project consists of 34 programs with a goal of increasing the number of researchers in the country by a third to 28,000. The number of labs is expected to increase to 1,200. Areas to be funded include agriculture, health and energy. The program is designed to attract Algerian scientists back to the country and to increase the country’s annual research expenditures per GDP from 0.5% to 1%.

Source: SciDev.net