Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

partnerships with foreign scientificinstitutions in order to register and protecttheir patents in preparation for marketingthem to production sectors and turningthem into high-quality products, goods, orservices.Analysis of the outcomes of Arabscientific research shows weak yields formost indicators in comparison to otherregions of the world. Despite the relativelyhigh GNPs of some countries of the Arabregion, Arab innovative, scientific, andresearch performance is not faring wellin comparison to that taking place in therest of the world. The picture grows morenegative still when attention is turned tothe output of scientific research in termsof publications and patents, as well aswith regard to the number of researchersworking to produce it and the estimatedvalue of Arab spending on research anddevelopment.For example, it is clear that no positivecorrelation exists between the numberof researchers in the Arab region andthe number of scientific publicationsproduced there. The number of scientificpapers published per 100 researchers eachyear was only two in four countries, was sixand thirty-eight in two further countries,and was around 100 in Kuwait. If thetotal number of Arab university teachingstaff is calculated at 180,000 doctorateholdinguniversity professors, and if weadd around 30,000 researchers workingfull-time in specialised centres, then theacademic-scientific corps working in Arabresearch and development is estimatedat 210,000 researchers. Yet this corpsproduces only 5,000 academic papersper year, equalling twenty-four scientificpapers per 1,000 university professors andfull-time researchers. 21Data related to national income ofseventeen Arab countries show that ArabGDP was $1,042 billion in 2006, and yetannual gross expenditure on scientificresearch did not exceed two billion USD, anaverage of 0.2 per cent. This expenditureproduced only 38 invention patents and5,000 scientific papers, meaning thatTABLE 5-9StatePatents registration with the USPTOby seven Arab countriesAverage annualNumber of patentsnumber of patents(2005-2006) 1 Utility patents(out of 134(2002-2006) 2 countries) 3Saudi Arabia 37 14.8 51UAE 11 4.6 132Egypt 11 5.6 70Kuwait 10 5.6 37Syria 3 0.8 80Oman 1 0.2 121Jordan 1 1.4 63Bahrain 0 0 90Qatar .. 0.4 124Algeria .. 0.4 89Tunisia .. 0.6 130Morocco .. 0.8 82Lebanon .. 2.8 ..Source: 1 USPTO, http://www.uspto.gov, on 29 August 2008; 2 World Bank Database, Knowledge Assessment Methodology(KAM), 2008, on 10 June 2009; 3 The World Economic Forum, 2008bthe cost of one scientific paper came toaround $400,000. This estimated cost forthe production of a scientific paper orpatent is clearly exorbitant, and weakensthe trust of society and its productionsectors in Arab research programmes andtheir researchers. In comparison, Malaysiaspends on research and development 22.5per cent of gross Arab expenditure, whileFinland spends 1.75 times as much as theArab region and registers 855 inventionpatents at the cost of $4.1 million each,equalling 8 per cent of the cost of onepatented Arab invention.SOCIAL SCIENCE POLICIESAND ARTISTIC INNOVATIONHere we shall attempt to broaden thesignifications generally given the conceptof the knowledge society, based on therequirements for the development ofknowledge in the Arab nation. It would,after all, be unreasonable for indicators,many of which do not encapsulate theNo positivecorrelation existsbetween the numberof researchers inthe Arab regionand the number ofscientific publicationsproduced thereARAB PERFORMANCE IN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION201