BISO Home > USNC/IAU Homepage > IAU Strategic Plan

IAU Strategic Plan for Astronomy in the Developing World
Major Points

• An integrated strategic approach based on the future potential for research and education in each participating country. Because of the relative underdevelopment, sub-Saharan Africa will receive special attention.
  
• Enlarging the number of active volunteers by recruiting more members and augmenting the pool of volunteers by doctoral and post-doc trainees and talented non-member experts on elementary education and public outreach.
  
• Initiation of new activities. Major proposed new initiatives include (i) an endowed lectureship program (like the AAS Shapely Program) to provide semi-popular lectures on inspirational topics at the high school level and (ii) long-term “institute twinning” between established astronomy institutes and university departments in less developed countries.
  
• Creation of a small Global Development Office (GDO). Mobilizing large number of volunteers and implementing new programs require professional coordination.
  
• Increasing Regional involvement and the adoption of a “bottom-up” approach
  
• Exploiting new tools, such as the Tunisian “Astro-Bus”.

The complete IAU Strategic Plan for Astronomy in the Developing World can be found on the IAU website (1.76MB PDF).