Knowledge Production in the Arab World

Sari Hanafi, Rigas Arvanitis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317364092
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Over recent decades we have witnessed the globalization of research. However, this has yet to translate into a worldwide scientific network, across which competencies and resources can flow freely. Arab countries have strived to join this globalized world and become a 'knowledge economy, ' yet little time has been invested in the region's fragmented scientific institutions; institutions that should provide opportunities for individuals to step out on the global stage.

Knowledge Production in the Arab World investigates research practices in the Arab world, using multiple case studies from the region with particular focus on Lebanon and Jordan. It depicts the Janus-like face of Arab research, poised between the negative and the positive and faced with two potentially opposing strands; local relevance alongside its internationalization. The book critically assesses the role and dynamics of research and poses questions that are crucial to further our understanding of the very particular case of knowledge production in the Arab region. The book explores research's relevance and whom it serves, as well as the methodological flaws behind academic rankings and the meaning and application of key concepts such as knowledge society/economy.

Providing a detailed and comprehensive examination of knowledge production in the Arab world, this book is of interest to students, scholars and policy makers working on the issues of research practices and status of science in contemporary developing countries.

Part I
Arab research dynamics

1
Decisive impact of the national research and innovation systems

In many ways, the reference model for the study of research systems is the existence of a national system that includes research institutions, universities, agencies funding research, technical centers, private R&D units, “intermediate” actors such as brokers in technology and providers. Over the years, notably so because of the multiplication of studies in a large variety of countries, the complexity of the systems appeared much greater than could have been predicted on the basis of a simplistic, although systemic, view. Arab countries are also complex in their organization of research institutions and policies. Nonetheless, some constants can be drawn and this chapter presents an empirical descriptive analysis of research systems in Arab countries, with the aim to reveal these constants. We have long wanted to test the significance of indicators commonly used in most publications about science and technology in the Arab region. These indicators are employed here to develop a typology of research systems that, hopefully, can help understand the riddle of underinvestment in scientific research in Arab countries. The purpose of the exercise is to relate patterns of publication, aspects relating to the governance and organization of the research system, the role of universities, and other factors. This empirical approach is not so much interested in each country’s ranking in a unique scale of values than on the characterization of their profiles, highlighting what makes similarities and differences between one profile and another.

1 Indicators and data in the Arab research system

1.1 Absence of indicators

Before describing the research systems and the factors affecting the dynamics of science and technology in the Arab region, the authors explored the indicators commonly available to public scrutiny. The sources here are less numerous. Most of the statistical information has been compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)¹ and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)² and contain data for member states of those organizations. These organizations follow recognized standards for manpower and financial resources. Countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH)³ have also gathered some of these data without employing any recognized definition for manpower and financial statistics. All of these organizations necessarily rely on reporting by public authorities, but most of them do not follow the international standards or, more simply, do not really have the ability to effectively count the resources dedicated to research. Moreover, national authorities in most Arab countries have not given special attention to science and technology as part of their statistical administration.

In short, after many years of recommendations by all possible international organizations, in the Arab countries there are still no reliable input statistics; that is, data gathered according to the international standards that are defined in the “Frascati Manual,” the document that contains all the internationally recognized definitions for science and technology statistics. It should be emphasized that these statistical standards have been the product of a professionalization of statistical data on science and technology. Even if they have their own drawbacks (Godin 2005), they were designed to respond to the need of a global view of science and technology and to identify the competitive status of OECD countries. The statistical infrastructure was created for this specific purpose after World War II, but most Arab countries have not been involved in this techno-economic competition that affected OECD countries. Thus, they have lacked the incentive to promote statistics of the same nature; a lack that is usually underlined by international organizations, which press them to produce uniform data. In brief, most Arab countries have had the same debate on the necessity and uses of scientific research as OECD countries, but unlike the OECD countries this occurred later in time, and competitiveness was not their main interest. It is of course difficult to make generalizations on all Arab countries, but those lacking oil, as did many countries that acquired their independence in the dawn of the twentieth century, intended to consolidate the academic institutions performing research – apart from teaching. This capacity building required crude data on the number of professors and students; as a result, more complex questions were left unattended. The richer, oil-producing countries were usually less interested in competitiveness, with the very notable exceptions of Iraq and Algeria, which were the sole oil-producing countries that defined a scientific capacity building strategy as part of their political project of independence (El-Kenz and Waast 1997). Thus, it appears that Arab countries have not had a strategic understanding of the role of research. Most recently, the debates on science and technology in society were mainly triggered by international organizations, in particular after the 2005 Arab Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which stressed the idea that research was hindered in the Arab region due to lack of freedom (UNDP 2005),⁴ and triggered a very intense debate on the gaps in research in the region.

Since no reliable statistics exist on research and innovation in the Arab region, and no statistical infrastructures or institutions have been designed to produce them, it can be particularly problematic to establish international comparisons. This situation is not unique to the Arab region. Beyond Europe and North America, only Latin America has developed a good network of observatories, called the Network for Science and Technology Indicators (RICYT), which receives regular support from UNESCO. No such network exists in either Asia or Africa, although some organizations, like Globelics,⁵ have promoted linkages between units working for policy-making bodies in technology, innovation and economic development. In the Mediterranean region, because of its strategic importance for the EU, a number of networks have been promoted.⁶ Nonetheless, these statistical indicators are available only in those countries that have demonstrated a political interest in science and technology at the national level, which is by itself an indicator of their focus on research and innovation (Mouton and Waast 2009).

1.2 Science and technology observatories in the Arab region

It would be unfair to say that no effort has been made to establish a reliable statistical basis for the development of science and technology in the Arab region. The Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Capacities in Mediterranean Countries (ESTIME), funded by the European Union (EU) between 2004 and 2007, was one such attempt; the 2007–2012 Mediterranean Innovation and Research Coordination Action (MIRA) included the creation of an observatory as part of its objectives. In three workshops, MIRA produced a white paper outlining plans for the observatory.⁷ Experience has shown that a science and technology indicators unit would have to manage a variety of data: input data on resources (money, human resources, other resources); output data on results of research and innovation (publications, innovation, patents); and relational data, showing networks and collaborations or connections (Barré 2001). No entity of this sort has ever been created in the Arab region, capable of managing these different kinds of data. To be fair, few countries have been able to create such a unit, able to manage all of this diversity of data. What is striking in the case of Arab countries is the expressed need for such a unit by officials and the simultaneous fear to really have it. Moreover, all experts agree that such a unit should be independent from the political authorities, something unimaginable in most of these countries, where statistics and all things related to “information” are high-profile security issues. At best, they can accept including them as an office closely linked to the head of a research council, but none of the Arab governments is willing to see any such unit appear as an independent public structure; worse, the simple idea of having a non-official unit for science and technology indicators appears as absurd and senseless, since officials can only think of statistics (of any sort) as a public, that is governmental, venture.

Some countries, like Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan, have actively sought to create observatories. Their fates are still unclear. The Jordanian project was more or less halted, and in no case could be imagined as independent of the council of science and technology. Tunisia created its national observatory and then, one year later, after a change of minister, the Ben Ali regime just decided that this was no longer necessary, relegating the unit to a simple service of the ministry; the project has not yet been revived, although formally the observatory has been maintained as an office inside the Ministry of Research and will probably remain there. Lebanon has announced the need to create an observatory in its science and technology plan; the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) has launched the Lebanese Observatory on Research, Development and Innovation – and alongside it, the first feasibility study, funded by ESCWA. The Lebanese Observatory’s first initiatives, including an innovation survey, science and technology survey and the establishment of indicators, are currently underway. But it couldn’t create a Frascati-compatible statistic of human resources, and the figures on R&D investments are still a guess, as far as public investment is concerned, and a dated first statistical estimate concerning private R&D investments. The activities of the unit, still inside the CNRS, are also linked to political willingness. Morocco has tried on various occasions to create a structure, either inside the Ministry of Research, or the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, or inside the National Research Center (CNRST) or the Academy of Sciences Hassan II. The last attempt to date was a proposal inside a large Morocco–EU “twinning” project, that again was not followed by any results, as with all previous attempts. An ongoing private initiative might rise, finally, and this in itself should be a clear indication of the diversification of the national research system.

In the Arab region, the ESCWA has repeatedly proposed to include an indicators observatory as a support for policy-making, and it has periodically published data on science and technology. The newly created ESCWA Technology Center, based in Amman, includes an indicators unit that is focused more on specific studies than indicators of production and maintenance. At some point in the last ten years, many countries have mentioned a similar effort, but alas this was rarely translated into concrete action. When figures are (miraculously) produced at the national level, it is usually in some conference, presented by an official authority on science and technology, and one can only wonder on the light-speed efficiency of such public civil servants.

Looking at the successful experiences of countries that have developed an indicators unit for science and technology – for example in Latin America – we find that in all cases the unit has been supported by an academic team, or at least a policy-making “think tank” that is composed of academics with backgrounds in various social sciences, as well as natural and exact sciences. There is, moreover, a virtuous cycle established between (a) the fulfillment of policy objectives; (b) the provision of adequate information, processed in an intelligent way and responsive to policy needs; and (c) the production of “basic” knowledge on the science and technology community, the interaction of different scientific areas, and the productive and service sectors. The Latin American experience demonstrates the value of this close connection between academic work and the development of science and technology policy (Arellano et al. 2012). A similar development exists in Thailand, centered on the concept of regional innovation systems: indicators appeared as a result of the development of regional clusters of production and technology, and the governments’ desire to understand and promote this economic phenomenon. Thus, in Malaysia, Thailand and China, indicators appeared from offices responsible for industrial policy-making.⁸ This example illustrates that indicators can emerge as a by-product of intellectual effort to understand science and technology in the particular context of each country. That none of this has happened so far in the Arab countries is also the result of a lack of academic research on the research activities, or scarce studies on all the aspects related to the science, technology and society linkages.⁹

1.3 Composite indicators and rankings

In the absence of reliable and robust indicators, two strategies are normally employed: the first is opinion surveys or polls; the second is rankings based on composite indicators that can compensate for the diversity of sources.

Policy-makers and the literature that is aimed at business people prefer to rely on indicators drawn from opinion polls. This method relies on a survey of persons considered “knowledgeable informants,” that is, professionals with particular knowledge and insight of research and innovation activities. Academics, entrepreneurs and policy-makers are asked to grade a series of variables related to different aspects of research and innovation. This mitigates the risk of false or incomplete data; nevertheless, the view of the field is reduced by the mean of opinions expressed by this collection of informed persons. Since no one can claim to have a global view of the sector, this is considered as an acceptable way to show the state-of-play. The identity of the persons responding to this kind of survey is as important as the points of view they express. Moreover, the answers obtained are measured using some ranking method which produces a “mean” opinion not necessary reflected by any real social actor (Leresche et al. 2009).¹⁰ This average opinion becomes a social norm by itself; it could well be said that it reflects the demise of our capacity to modify this social norm.

A second strategy, employed by the World Bank and INSEAD’s Global Innovation Index, relies on more general indica...