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The Research and Higher Education system in Tunisia is characterized by the high institutional density across the country.
Tunisia has an important number of higher education and scientific research. The country has about 18 higher education and scientific research institutions per million inhabitants
The Tunisian scientific research system currently entails 493 research laboratories and 94 research units distributed across the universities and research centres.
The research laboratories and units involved in total about 12 751 teacher-researchers (MHESR).
According to the decree No. 2009-644 of 2 March 2009, setting out the organization and operating procedures of research laboratories, research units and research consortia ; to constitute a research laboratory and research unit, a minimum of 14 researchers is legally required. among the 14 researchers, two researchers with a rank of professor of higher education, associate professor or equivalent grade; six researchers with a rank of assistant professor or equivalent; and six PhD students or other technical staff with a degree equivalent to the grade of assistant professor of higher education.
These research laboratories and units are established in :
- 13 public universities with 205 higher education and scientific research institutions and 37 doctoral schools
- 39 national research centres recognised by the National Authority for Evaluation of Research Activities
In addition to universities, academia is enriched by a network of ISETs (Higher institutes of Technological studies) that delivers degrees for initial training, vocational training in close partnership with centers of technological resources, centres of competence and business incubators.
For more information on research in Tunisia & Higher Education and Scientific Research Indicators, please visit http://www.mes.tn/
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The research governance system in Tunisia is developed, funded and implemented at the national level.
Recently, there has been a strong emphasis in the political debate on the need for more concerted activities and a more inclusive decision-making process to shape the Tunisian R&I system, including businesses and the civil society.
The public R&D performers function under the umbrella of different Ministries:
• Higher education and scientific research institutions and research centres are under the authority of the Ministry of higher education and scientific research (MHESR) and other sectorial ministries
• Industrial technical centres work under the authority of the Ministry of Industry
• Technoparks and clusters work following orientations of both the Ministry of higher education and scientific research (MHESR) and the Ministry of Industry
The role of the regions in R&I governance is very limited even at research performance level.
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To empower the Research and Innovation sector in Tunisia, various development mechnisms were implemented over the years in order to bring closer the research and development actors for a strongest partnership and cooperation between the public and private institutions envolved in the research and Innovation system.
these mechanisms are presented as follow :
The industrial technical centres; under the authority of the Ministry of Industry are regarded as « Interface infrastructure » as they are providing services to industry for testing the prototypes.
Technical centres include :
- The Technical Centre for the Wood and Furniture industry
- The Technical Centre for the Mechanical and electrical industry
- The Technical Centre for Chemistry
- The Technical centre for the textile industry
- The Technical centre for Leather and footwear;
- The Technical centre for the Agrofood industry;
- The Technical centre for the Packaging industry
- And the Technical centre for aquaculture
To know more about this structure, please visit :http://www.tunisieindustrie.nat.tn/fr/doc.asp?mcat=16&mrub=203
The small and medium sized entreprises (SMEs) are regarded as the engine of Tunisia’s private sector economic growth. Tunisia had 624,000 micro and small enterprises in 2014 which accounted for 99.7% of the total number of enterprises in the country and employed around1.2 million workers (i.e. about 44% of the formal private sector work force) (World Bank, 2014).
Since that, all the development strategies of the country were created based on the performance of SMEs as they were the main pillar of the country’s economic landscape. The SMEs’ ability to obtain support for their R&D investments is therefore crucial to Tunisia’s future economic development.
For more information, please visit The Agency for the Promotion of Industry and Innovation portal: http://www.tunisieindustrie.nat.tn/fr/home.asp
To enhance the economic sector of Tunisia, several initiatives were launched to support innovation within the private companies, SMEs and civil society, added to the network of “Start-up nurseries” authorized by the State, which are switching gradually to the Business incubators model.
For more information, please visit the Tunisian Startup Portal.
Technoparks and competitiveness clusters were created to promote scientific research and technological innovations in areas related to national priorities, encourage incubation and creation of innovative companies, promote public - private partnerships, and support innovative projects with high added value.
To know more about the created Technoparks over the years, please use this link : http://www.mfcpole.com.tn/Fr/association-tunisia-technoparks_11_127