The Arab Science and Technology Foundation (ASTF) sponsored the international initiative to engage the Iraqi Scientific and Technological Community to develop their country. This initiative was executed in cooperation with Sandia National Laboratories, it started from 2004 till the end of 2006 as the primary stage.

A lot of international and national organizations contributed in this initiative, like: UNESCO, this initiative started by 5 development programs, and the value of its fund reached 217,000 US Dollar.

Through this international initiative, About 53 projects were funded, that included 41 researchers and 184 researchers assistant, in addition to the international cooperator with the Iraqi researchers. ASTF conducted comprehensive field survey to identify the main needs for the Iraqi scientific community, and about 435 new scientific ideas excreted from the survey’s result, besides focusing on 12 essentials scientific fields to develop Iraq.

In September 2005, an international conference was organized in Amman, Jordon to discuss the submitted scientific researches.