YEREVAN, OCTOBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The Office of Acting Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan has released a statement on creating a new fund, the Manukyan Simon Research Fund, with a 200,000 dollar initial funding.

“As a result of cooperation and efforts of acting Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, Manukyan Simon Fund (MSF) representative Christine Simon and American University of Armenia (AUA) president Armen Ter-Kyureghian, AUA signed an agreement on October 10 with MSF on creating the Manukyan Simon Research Fund (MSRF) with a preliminary funding of 200 thousand USD. The MSRF will be used for carrying out research regarding topics of interest for the Armenian government by local, international, and Armenian university experts”, Avinyan’s office said in a statement.

In this regard, acting Deputy PM Avinyan noted: “This is yet another result of our working visit to USA and Canada. Manukyan Simon Research Fund till contribute to the government-scientific community interaction and development of policy based on analysis of facts. We highly value the role of Christine Simon and the Manukyan Simon Fund in this process and we thank them for their support to Armenia and the governmental reforms. We are also grateful to the American University of Armenia, in person of Mr. Ter-Kyureghian, for the productive cooperation that made the realization of this initiative possible”.

In addition to research, the fund will also grant scholarships.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan