Report presented to ESCWA by Sari Hanafi and Rigas Arvanitis. Presents statistics and an analysis of the research systems i nthe ARab countries.

1. The broken cycle between
research, university and society
in ESCWA countries:
proposals for change
Sari Hanafi, Professor, AUB
Rigas Arvanitis, Senior
researcher, IRD

2. 1. Introduction
 Dynamic of research and innovation is not a
simple response to national policies and
national frontiers.
 Various social actors: researchers, research
teams, institutions, universities and high
educational institutions, research
communities, enterprises
 Public policies enacted by governments and
inter-governmental programmes + influence
 Desire to become „knowledge societies‟
 Need for increased research activity and
innovation.

3. 1. Introduction
 Non-hegemonic countries with two
essential dimensions:
 position of the country in the international
division of scientific work
 do not have financial instruments capable of
influencing the broader goals of knowledge
production.
 Importance of collaboration and
cooperation policies

4. Diversity
 Types of research systems
 Categorization is always the result of
history
 role of the state,
 relation of the state to its scientists
 use of knowledge in the state apparatus
 development strategies
 trust in science.

5. Diversity - history
 3 historical stages:
 After IIWW: science as a national endeavor,
and as an expression of national sovereignty.
 70s- 90s: creation of national plans for science
and technology, and of drawing national
priorities.
 2000s: As globalization becomes an economic
and political norm, the national orientation has
been strategically under threat. Areas such as
nanotechnology or biotechnology developed in
emerging countries despite low investments in
other areas.

6. 2. Research systems
1. Insufficient data on research and
innovation in the Arab world.
 No reliable and robust indicators
 -> Use of opinion surveys or polls; and
the use of rankings
 No willingness to promote indicators,
„Observatories‟

7. Characterize the research and
innovation systems
 Principal component analysis for 16 data
 Absolute indicators (size): number of
professors, students, researchers, volumes
of production (in number of articles) and
shares of World scientific production, Gross
Expenditures in R&D (GERD)
 Proportional indicators: that relate research
to population of researchers or size of the
country
 Indicators of changes, such as the growth
rates of scientific production;
 Complex indicators : General Innovation
Index, Assessment of R&D business
investment (competitivity index survey)

8. Figure 1: Diagram of Variables

9. 4 types of research and innovation systems

10. Table 1: Distribution of Countries According to GDP/head & GERD (% GDP)
Public
expenditure
Public on education
expenditure as % of total
on education government GERD (as a
GDP per as % of GDP expenditure % of GDP)
Country GDP 2010 capita (2010) (2008) (2008) (2007) (1)
Tunisia
33.4 3165 6.4 16.5 1.20
Morocco 59.9 1844 5.7 25.7 0.75
Libya*
49.4 7 885 2.7 19.8 0.70*
Qatar 54.2 33 932 2.4 8.24 0.33
Sudan
22.8 524 0.4 4.1 0.30
Jordan
15.3 2 534 4.9 20.6 0.30
Egypt*
160.3 1976 3.8 11.9 0.23*
UAE
158.4 21 087 0.9 27.2 0.20
Lebanon** 28.5 6 747 2 8.1 0.20
Oman
303.5 11 192 4.3 22.6 0.17
Algeria
79.2 2232 4.3 20.3 0.16
Syria
31.2 1 526 4.9 16.7 0.12
Kuwait
61.4 25 100 6.6 14.8 0.09
Saudi Arabia
258.7 9 425 5.7 19.3 0.05

11. R=0.307 p=0,285 (>0.01 n.s.)

12. Relation of GDP (2010) with GERD to GDP
R=-0.293 ; p= 0.290 (>0,01 : n.s.)

13. Expenditures in R&D: The public
factors
 No correlation between expenditures in
R&D and the size of GDP or even the
expenditures in Education
 Expenditures in R&D depend upon
specific institutions, programmes and
policies
 Universities play an important role
because they concentrate most of the
research activity
 Except Agriculture, few research-
dedicated public research institutes

14. Expenditures in R&D : the foreign
factor
 R&D –mainly public–funded more
often by international programmes
(agriculture, environment, NIH in
health, global foundations, NGOS,
EU funding, ….)
 Few countries have the ability to
influence funding that runs in
international arenas

15. Foundations for research
 Qatar Foundation
 Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation
in the United Arab Emirates (2007)
 Middle East Science Fund in Jordan (2009)
 2008 European Union-Egypt Innovation Fund
Only Qatar set the bar high by calling for the
allocation of 2.8 per cent of the general budget
to support scientific research in mid of 2008.

16. Frameworks of collaborations
MIRA Survey (4 340 scientists having fulfilled the questionnaire; 48%
working in Europe and 52% working in South and East Med countries)

17. Expenditures in R&D: The private
factor
 Low Private and productive sector in R&D
(but see Jordan = 30%; see growth in
Morocco)
 40% of foreign companies from outside
the Middle East and North Africa, that
invest in the region plan to increase their
R&D investment BUT FDI has not had so
much impact in terms of spillovers and
production

18. Public and private
Table 1: Scientific Research Sources of Financing in Arab Countries
Sources Expenses in million dollars Expenses in %
State budgets 840.9 61.5%
University budgets 217.3 27.8%
Private sector 12.6 2.9%
External funding 61.5 7.8%
TOTAL 782.3 100%
Source: UNESCO (2009: 541)

19. Faults in expenditures in R&D
 Very highly profitable
companies belonging to the
state DO NOT invest in research:
ex. OCP in Morocco invests 1% of
its sales into R&D….
 Partnerships between the private
and public sectors in promoting
R&D have been rare and relatively
inefficient.

20. Policies: “up-grading” or
innovation?
 Support to SMEs for R&D and
innovation: up-grading programmes
 Rare support to large investment
projects in highly competitive areas
 No direct support to successful
„champions‟ (but see Morocco)
 No banking alternatives to small
innovation projects

21. Innovation: general characteristics
 Middle-sized companies (around 300
employees) with verified record of
technical success and strong economic
strengths are not aimed by policies
 FDI does not show a record of in-house
R&D
 Innovation is more frequent than is
usually assumed rather in medium-
sized countries : technological learning

22. initiatives in favour of R&D
 Jordan: “A professor in every factory”
(promoted in 2003)
 Lebanon: LIRA and ELCIM
 RDI programmes in Jordan, Egypt and
Tunisia (EU funding)
 Technopoles: Berytech (Lebanon), El-
Ghazala (Tunisia)
Less successful programmes:
 Practically all University-productive
sector transfer units have disappeared or
delayed

23. Innovation policies: the network
paradigm
 Most policies assume the idea of
developing a network approach or
Research-to-industry
 Clustering of industry
 Techno-poles (Tunisia , Lebanon) –
mix of incubators and technopole
 Funding: VC (Leb: Berytech Fund)

24. Research Systems : structural
issues
 Scientific research agencies attached to
higher education systems, rather than to
production and service sectors
 But see the KAST (King Abdul-Aziz city of S&T)
 No Coordination
 Public research institutes focused on the
basic sciences
 Monitoring needed: diversification of PRI to
include medical, agricultural sciences, applied
industrial specializations, Humanities and
social sciences, environmental sciences.

25. Research Systems : governance
issues
 Centralized systems of governance
(Maghreb, Saudi Arabia, Egypt)
 Decentralized (Lebanon and Jordan)
more or less controlled by the
central authorities
 Small market-oriented systems
(Qatar, UAE, Bahrein)
 No other stakeholders than the
State !

26. 5. Scientific Production
Information problem is mainly a policy
issue : no governments wants to
tackle !
 Bad use of scientific production stats.
 No serious bibliometric research.
 No excuse: SCOPUS, Web of science
and E-Marifa are now accessible.
Example of Abdul-Azziz Foundation
(Casablanca)

27. Figure 1: Scientific documents published in the Arab World (2000-2010)
A small and
rapidly growing
scientific
production

28. A specific and marked specialization
pattern
 Mainly in physical/chemical sciences
and engineering (Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Algeria)
 Little emphasis in bio-medical
sciences (except Lebanon & Tunisia)
and relatively little to
agric/environmental concerns
 Re-growth of
environmental/agricultural sciences

29. Specialization pattern of ESCWA
region as a whole (2000-2010)
Note

30. A marked specialization pattern in the Arab
countries

31. A marked specialization pattern in the Arab
countries

32. A marked specialization pattern in the
Arab countries

33. A marked specialization pattern in the
Arab countries

34. Engineering? So where are the
patents ?
Patents Granted to 13 MENA Countries by US Patent
Office (1977-2009)
Number of Patents % of total
Saudi Arabia 324 40.75
Kuwait 127 15.84
Egypt 97 12.20
UAE 77 9.68
Lebanon 58 7.29
Morocco 42 5.28
Jordan 24 3.01
Tunisia 18 2.26
Oman 8 1.006
Qatar 8 1.006
Algeria 5 0.628
Bahrain 5 0.628
Yemen 3 0.377
Total 795 100%
Note: Stats for 01/01/1977-31/12/2009
Source: http://www.uspto.gov/wen/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_all.htm

35. Low Citations, low impact?
Scientific production & H-index (1996-
2010)
National Citations per H
Rank Country Citable documents Citations Rank H-index
Citations Document index
40 Egypt 63 415 367 134 78 841 6,79 115 48
50 Saudi Arabia 35 161 200 216 28 678 6,42 106 55
52 Tunisia 25 780 116 113 27 106 6,37 75 75
55 Morocco 19 721 116 525 21 795 6,48 84 67
59 Algeria 17 288 71 453 14 240 6,01 68 84
61 Jordan 14 477 74 534 11 684 6,38 66 87
United Arab
66 12 372 68 035 8 154 7,02 72 76
Emirates
67 Kuwait 10 723 69 937 10 457 7,06 71 80
69 Lebanon 9 319 69 103 7 321 8,98 82 72
82 Oman 5 488 30 617 3 987 6,64 52 98
95 Qatar 3 286 13 450 1 326 5,07 39 127
97 Iraq 3 147 9 345 1 084 4,24 31 148
Syrian Arab
99 2 827 21 004 2 874 9,01 50 104
Republic
102 Sudan 2 693 17 692 2 602 8,5 45 114
108 Bahrain 2 304 9 257 1 051 4,72 33 141
Libyan Arab
111 1 944 5 996 385 4,5 29 154
Jamahiriya
113 Palestine 1 787 9 374 1 511 7,34 35 134
127 Yemen 1 093 5 894 691 6,96 32 147
168 Mauritania 250 1 893 96 8,17 22 167
191 Djibouti 79 464 19 6,21 11 200
206 Somalia 42 233 3 7,82 10 204

36. Local Journals in Databases (countries
around the Mediterranean Basin) SCI+SSCI +
A&HCI
Scopus (WoS)
Spain 356 163
France 770 251
Monaco 3 0
Malta 1 0
Italy 572 168
Slovenia 29 25
Croatia 104 62
Bosnia- Herzegovina 2 4
Montenegro 0 0
Albania 0 0
Greece 39 18
Turkey 143 73
Syria 0 0
Cyprus 2 0
Lebanon 4 0
Israel 70 25
Egypt 14 3
Libya 0 0
Tunisia 2 0
Algeria 1 0
Morocco 1 0
Total 2084 792

37. Share
% Int. % Int. (%)
Documents Collaboration Collaboration Share (%) World
Country Documents 2000 2010 (2000) (2010) World (2000) (2010)
Saudi Arabia 1835 5739 26.1 56.2 0.15 0.26
Egypt 2858 8459 28.1 40.2 0.24 0.4
Bahrain 89 266 15.73 42.48 0.01 0.01
Iraq 91 724 16 30 0.01 0.03
Jordan 627 2062 30.46 41.46 0.05 0.09
Lebanon 448 1259 38.4 54.6 0.04 0.06
Kuwait 568 1050 27.9 45.7 0.05 0.05
Oman 255 779 42.4 60.7 0.02 0.04
Palestine 40 281 50.0 50.9 0 0.01
International Qatar 58 693 34.5 69.6 0 0.03
Scientific Syria 139 402 52.5 62 0.01 0.02
Collaborations UAE 425 2059 47.5 58.2 0.04 0.09
Yemen 41 198 68.3 70.2 0 0.01
Publications &
Sudan 99 466 55.6 59.2 0.01 0.02
Co-authorship in Algeria 495 2862 51.5 52.5 0.04 0.13
Arab Countries Libya 72 468 34.7 51.9 0.01 0.02
(2000-2010) Morocco 1184 2277 51.4 47.6 0.1 0.1
Tunisia 755 4415 39.7 43.9 0.06 0.2
Mauritania 14 20 78.6 100 0 0

38. International cooperation
Scientific Co-publications in the Arab World (2000-
2008)

39. Med countries

41. Publications & co-publications -
Lebanon

42. Explaining the relatively low production in
science in the Arab countries
 The role of the university promotion
system
 The research policy of high
education institutions
 The lack of good Arab science
journals
 Engage in a systematic analysis of
impact of research programs

43. 8. Scientific
Capital:
Universities and
ResearchersThe
'Rose of Winds'
of Research
Research is a
multiple facets
activity

44. Recommendations: A vision of future
 Making innovation a clearly stated
objective of public policy
 Fixing the cycle between research,
university and society --> Reconnect
research and uses
 Research systems: promote
diversification

45. Recommendations: Address research in
universities and
 Consolidating teams („labeling‟, policy,
collectives)
 Interacting with others: international,
regional and local networking
 Refereed Academic journals
 “Diaspora” options to be examined
 Better living conditions

46. Reconnect research and uses
 Diversify funding
1. Few strategic funding programmes with
strong linkages with productive sector.
“strategic” and applied research: water, desertification,
renewable sources of energy, agro-food
2. Some socio-economic objectives without
economic interests (health, social programmes,
education…).
3. Basic sciences and engineering and
stron collaborations : objective is neither
socio-economic, nor innovation driven.