The government will increase its contribution to CyI in 2025, recognizing the important work it is carrying out, announced President of the Republic, Nicos Christodoulides, on Thursday, December 5, during a visit to The Cyprus Institute where he also attended a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Institute’s parent organization, the Cyprus Research and Education Foundation (CREF), and its Scientific Advisory Committee. President Christodoulides was accompanied during his visit by Deputy Minister to the President, Ms Irini Piki.

 

He also announced that the Government will contribute towards the necessary infrastructure for the Climate Change Initiative, for which the Institute is the coordinator.  The Initiative, originally undertaken by the Republic of Cyprus in 2019 to address the impacts of Climate Change in the region, will be revived and strengthened as announced by President Christodoulides at the International Conference on the "Climate Crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East" (emmeclimate2024.cyi.ac.cy) this past September.

 

President of the Cyprus Institute, Stavros Malas, stated that one of the challenges of the Government, during the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2026, will be “as a small country, to build on the opportunity given to us to co-shape the framework program for research”. He also noted that the very small ecosystem of excellence of Cyprus ranks the country first in competitive programs in Europe, but that “we still have a way to go in terms of national research spending”.

 

President Christodoulides notes that, “we are here to face all the challenges, having very high on our list of priorities to promote our country as a center of research and innovation, and especially as a small country, we must utilize such organizations, such as The Cyprus Institute, which is a Center of Excellence for Cyprus, a Center for which we are proud.” He added that the Executive Branch collaborates with the Institute in many areas “to face the multiple, diverse challenges we have as a State.”

 

“Having been in power for 20 months and having evaluated the important work that CyI performs, we have decided as a Government to increase our contribution beyond what was given in 2024. In 2025 it will be increased, recognizing the important work you are doing.” he said.

 

President Christodoulides also referred to the role of the Institute as coordinator of the Climate Change Initiative, which, as he said, “started from this Institute, and I know it very well, I was Minister of Foreign Affairs when this Initiative was launched.”

 

“So, we are here to evaluate the Centers of Excellence of our country, to evaluate organizations such as The Cyprus Institute”, and “where we see that work is being produced, we are here to support them”, said President Christodoulides, noting that the State, by demonstrating in practice it wants to promote the research and innovation sector, clearly wants to increase the percentage of expenditure on GDP, which, as he admitted, is low. “We want to rectify this through these actions”, he said.

 

For his part, Prof. Malas welcomed President Christodoulides to the meeting of the Board of Trustees, noting that “this is the first time that a President of the Republic is here with us”. He also noted that the President of the Republic is also the Honorary President of the Institute’s parent organization, adding that his presence “sends many messages” about the President’s support for the Institute.

 

Prof. Malas said that the Institute was created only 20 years ago and that this “is a short journey for a research center, but one with very great achievements, compared to any other Institutes abroad”. And this, he added, derives from a “very important evaluation” carried out by leading scientists, “who showed that this Institute, in a very short period of time, managed, under difficult conditions, both financial and otherwise, to establish itself not only as a Center of Excellence in our country, but also as a European and regional Center of Excellence with a significant presence, and its evaluation in all areas was excellent”.