Why the Arab World Is Not Producing Many Scientific Discoveries

By Aicha Sadik

Morocco News Tribune

 

Foreign friends have asked me over the years if Arabs don’t respect or study science, because it seems that they are dominated by religion.  When I reply that of course we respect and study science, they ask, “If that is so, why aren’t there any new scientific discoveries coming out of the Arab world?”

The crucial facts come down to two issues:  Arab society’s basic lack of respect for, and protection of, intellectual property rights; and the fact that the Arab World remains mired in social problems and upheavals.

We have many unemployed science graduates. Morocco has a good supply of well-trained people, and a few good laboratories.  In Morocco, fifty-eight percent of those employed in science are in the university sector; in Morocco, this is a public sector. 

During the past decade, Morocco’s priorities have aligned with social issues, namely fisheries, agriculture, drinking water, geology, mining, energy, telecommunications, and transport.   But there is very little privately-funded research in Morocco.

Historically, before and during the industrial revolution, individual inventors carried out research and invented technology using their own private funds.  The patent system was developed to allow investors to recoup their investment and realize a profit, usually by giving a twenty-year protection.  However, inventors are not always good businessmen, and often they make little from their inventions, while others make the money marketing them.

These days, in Western countries, there are two basic sources of scientific funding–government grants, and private funding.

Governments can fund basic research, or military-oriented research.  Even in a large country like the United States, there is much criticism of basic research, for the sake of knowledge itself, which is often viewed as having no great return.  Scientists, in turn, argue that much which is discovered comes back to improve life in other areas.  For example, NASA’s research on sound technology, improved for the purpose of putting a man on the moon, was picked up by the audio industry which used it to develop the musical audio-cassette business.

When basic research is criticized in rich countries, can you imagine the criticism we would have here in the Arab world if much money were spent on general scientific research,  instead of on subsidizing the poor, on education (universities are not free in the United States), or on many other more pressing needs?

The benefit of government-sponsored research is that the results are publicly-shared, such as with the original decoding of DNA in the Human Genome Project.  Twenty percent of government-funded research projects in America are generally carried out in private universities, using government grants (which is a very difficult and lengthy process to apply for) , while ten percent takes place in government agencies (where most defense research would be carried out).

Seventy percent of scientific research in America is carried out by private corporations, such as the pharmaceutical industry.  The reason they are willing to spend money on this research is the strong patent protection system in place in first-world countries, where private corporations are able to recoup their research and development expenditures, and be assured of making a good profit for a number of years.

Since these companies are private, if they cannot make a decent profit, they cannot stay in business.  In these days of cost-cutting, the private sector is becoming progressively more important in terms of its percentage of research.  All private research (except a very small amount done by charitable organizations) is carried out for the sake of profit, not basic knowledge.

Large countries can afford government support for scientific research, particularly in areas of research which benefit those governments.  Many smaller countries, and those with more pressing social problems, tend to rely on purchasing military equipment from large countries, rather than on trying to develop their own technologies.  This may partially account for so little research in the Arab World, except in Syria, and selected other Middle Eastern countries.

According to the editor of a worldwide scientific journal published in Britain, “We continue to receive a small number of papers from Tunisia, even with the change in government.  We also receive a few papers from both Saudi Arabia and Iran.”  She continues, ““China is leaping to the forefront in terms of new scientific research.  Ten years ago, less than fifteen percent of our submissions came from China.  Now it’s about fifty percent.”  These submissions from China all take place in English.”

 

More seriously, in the Arab World, there is almost NO private funding of scientific research.  Why not?  Arab countries give lip service to enforcing intellectual property laws, but in reality, they look the other way.

For example, look at the pirated DVDs which are still for sale everywhere.  The police make a public show of closing them down from time-to-time, but they just pop right back up, and often in the same place a few days, or a few weeks later.  This is because the society as a whole (meaning the man on the street) really doesn’t believe in intellectual property laws or paying higher prices for merchandise in order to protect intellectual property.  Courts are also unreliable at enforcing agreements.  The patent system is not

very useful in countries without strong enforcement.  So of course, no private company will take the chance of investing in long-term scientific research in the Arab World until this problem is solved.

One last and major reason why science graduates have trouble finding employment in the Arab World is that it is still a region with many social problems.  Whenever there are many social problems, whether the country is rich or poor, or whether it is modern or not yet modernized, the public money will be spent on social problems rather than on infrastructure or on research and development.  Employment of many science graduates even seems to be a problem in the United States and United Kingdom at present.

 

All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Morocco News Tribune’s editorial policy.