By attending the 6^th Science and Technology Exchange Program (STEP), scientists of the Islamic world will improve scientific and technological interactions in the Islamic world.

According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, the first meeting of the 6^th STEP steering committee was held on areas of water and energy, attended by Saeed Sohrabpour, the secretary of the 6^th STEP meeting, and Mohammad Hasan Saeedi, the secretary of HAMBAST scientific committee on water and energy.

On this multilateral meeting, Saeed Sohrabpour, the executive secretary of the 6^th STEP meeting, pointed out that the most important goal of the event is laying the foundation for and guiding scientific and technological interactions based on the problems in the Islamic world. In this regard, he added: we seek to gather scientists of the Islamic world to solve the challenges of Islamic countries.

He added: STEP is very popular among Islamic countries, and two rounds of the event have been held in Iran while three other rounds have been held in Malaysia, Oman, and Pakistan.

Sohrabpour announced that the 6^th round of the event will be held in November 2019 and emphasized the fast implementation of programs and plans in the university to maximally use the capacity of scientists.

In addition, Mohammad Mahdi Jafari, the executive secretary of STEP meeting, marked: the topics discussed at the STEP meeting include health, water and energy nexus, as well as functional levels, science communication, women and science and technology and science and technology financing.

He also affirmed that more than 100 scientists in the Islamic world attend the event from 34 countries in five areas of science and technology. In this regard, he added: these guests come from Malaysia, Turkey, England, India Iraq, and other countries.

Pointing out the achievements of previous STEP meetings, Jafari declared: attendance of more than 150 prominent scientists and higher education centers, signing cooperation agreements between universities and implementation of collaborative programs between scientists and universities are among the topics of the event.

He continued: the approval of the establishment of nine specialized workgroups in various fields and the formation of a laboratory network and the provision of research grants in the form of an Innovation Lab program are other achievements of the meeting.

In the end, Jafari marked: networking for Islamic scientists is taking place when there is a supply and demand process, while some countries are demanding the summit, and STEP is not just a science conference for them, and some are there for networking.