Reality shows tries to pique the interest in innovation while Gulf states lavish money on research
The four young finalists are lined up on stage, standing stiffly and exchanging nervous smiles with the audience and with each other, as the votes of the jury and then television viewers are tallied to the breathless commentary of an emcee and dramatic music. Farouk El-Baz, the head juror comes up on stage and to applause declares, “This proves that we Arabs, given the opportunities, can reach the highest heights.”
The emcee opens the sealed envelope. Ahmad Al-Ghazi, a Saudi, places fourth, taking home a $50,000 cash prize. Hind Hobeika, from Lebanon and the only female finalist, takes third and a $100,000 check. Now, the music reaches a dramatic crescendo as the emcees skips directly to the winner. It’s 26-year-old Kuwaiti Sadek Qassim, who pumps his arm in a clenched fist of victory as friends and family surround him with hugs and kisses.
Qassim, Hobeika and Al-Ghazi didn’t do a cover of a popular hit or a successful turn with a celebrity on the dance floor. Nor is El-Baz a music-industry executive or a celebrity chef. He’s an Egyptian-American scientist, widely known for his work at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Qassim took home a cool $300,000 for inventing an automated multi-functional oil samples lab tester.
And, Stars of Science, the competitive reality show that concluded its second season at the end of November, is television with a mission. Produced and funded by Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development and broadcast across the Middle East, its aim is to make science sexy for young Arabs.
"The program was very successful. Applications more than doubled for the second season,” Ali Hariri, the show’s Beirut-based production supervisor told The Media Line. “Young people are very interested in this type of show. Many of them have scientific potential, especially in the Gulf states. You can see the enthusiastic reactions in the talkbacks on the website.”
The foundation has its work cut out for it. As the U.S. and Europe transition into post-industrial knowledge-based economies, with Asia following closely behind, the Arab world is way behind by every measure of science and innovation. It lacks scientists and top-notch universities and devotes little money or attention to research and development. The best minds emigrate to greener pastures in the West.
The Arab world spent just 0.2% of its gross domestic product on research and development in 2007, the same level as in 2002 and half the rate in Africa, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) 2010 Science Report. By comparison, Europe spent 1.6% of GDP on R&D in 2007 and China 1.4%.
There are some 123,000 scientists and researchers in the Arab world, but there are fewer per million of the population than in the developing world as a whole. Even with huge amounts of money being pumped into projects like Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul Aziz University for Science and Technology, the amount spent per researcher was a paltry $38,400 in 2007. China spent almost twice that and Europe almost four times as much, even after taking account differences in costs, UNESCO estimates.
Only one of the world’s top 100 most frequently cited scientists comes from the Arab world, while the region has produced a single Nobel laureate – Egyptian Ahmed Zewail, who won the chemistry prize in 1999 while working at California Institute of Technology.
“Arab leaders and policy makers don’t believe in science as the way to development. They think we can own the technology by buying it,” Wasim Maziak, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at University of Memphis, told The Media Line by e-mail. “The social environment lacks democratic institutions and the free atmosphere needed for scientific inquiry to flourish and be protected.”
Born and raised in Syria, Maziak said he was determined to practice science in his home country. In 2002, he founded the Syria Center for Tobacco Studies. But four years later, at age 46, he gave up and relocated in the U.S. “I couldn’t combine the two components of my dream, so I had to leave,” he said.
Indeed, one of the objectives of Stars of Science is to fight brain drain, Tariq Al-Sada, an official with the Qatar Foundation, told The Media Line. "We don’t want people to come up with inventions and then emigrate,” he said. "The Sudanese inventor who won second place last season returned to work in a scientific center in Sudan."
The Arab world can’t afford to ignore science and technology. While the oil-rich states of the Gulf are living off energy for now, their leaders are preparing for the day when reserves run out. More immediately, they need to create high-paying, rewarding jobs for their rapidly growing populations, said Ranjit Rajan, a Dubai-based research director for International Data Corporation (IDC), a technology-market intelligence firm. That means developing high technology and other knowledge-intensive industries, he said.
Nor can poorer economies afford to ignore science, Rajan said. Saudi Arabia, for instance, isn’t producing enough graduates with information technology (IT) skills to supply the domestic market – he estimates that the kingdom’s IT industry will be short some 30,000 professionals by 2014 – and the shortfall will have to be filled by expatriates from places like Egypt, he said.
Most governments in the Arab world have no national policy for science or technology, but in the Gulf, oil billions are being used to jump start world-class research institutes and lure elite universities and scientists from the U.S. and Europe.
Qatar, which hosts Stars of Science, launched a five-year program in 2006 to increase R&D spending to 2.8% of GDFP from 0.33%. Its 14-square kilometer (five-square mile) Education City hosts engineering programs from Texas A&M University and Carnegie Mellon.
Abu Dhabi has slated $1.3 billion in funds for research and development through 2018 under a strategic plan for higher education announced last June. The Sorbonne and New York University have set up branches in the emirate, with the hope that they will evolve from teaching undergraduates to full-fledged research universities.
But the most ambitious plans are being pursued by Saudi Arabia. The government has stepped up science and technology spending in the last two years, with annual allocations set to grow to more than $1.6 billion annual over the next few years from $530 million in 2008 and $160 million a year on average in the two decades before that.
The King Abdulla University for Science and Technology opened in September 2009 with a $10 billion endowment and English as the language of instruction. The government has a letter of intent with Georgia Institute of Technology of the U.S. to build the first institution to offer foreign-accredited, postgraduate research degrees inside the kingdom. The King Abdullah Foreign Scholarships Program has sent about 85,000 Saudi students to study at leading overseas universities.
But scientific excellence requires more than deep pockets, warned Maziak of the University of Memphis. In any case, said IDC’s Rajan, it will take time for improved educational systems to begin producing the quantity and quality of graduates needed by knowledge-intensive industries. It will take even longer to change attitudes that hinder innovate thinking, he added.
“Besides all the technical skills, there’s also a problem with soft skills,” Rajan, told The Media Line. “There’s a problem with English language, there’s a problem in gaps in problem solving, so it’s not just a matter of quantity but quality as well.”
Nor is academic science alone going to address the Arab world’s need to create employment and non-oil growth. Getting R&D out of the laboratories and into new, innovative products is just as critical.
But private business in the Arab world spends almost nothing on developing new products and processes, said Wagdy Sawahel, a Cairo-based science policy adviser and founder of the sciencedev.net website. They account for just 1% of total R&D spending in the region, with universities making up 30% and government a whopping 69%. In developed economies, the weightings are almost exactly the opposite, with business making up 70%, he told The Media Line in e-mailed remarks.
“The shortcomings of science education in the Arab countries have been highlighted by the lack of entrepreneurship and innovation,” Sawahel said. “For innovation to take root, the golden triangle of academic institutions, government and the private sector must cooperate.”
(With reporting by David Miller)