[Farouk] El-Baz, the director of the U.S.-based Boston University’s Center for Remote Sensing, has been advising the Gulf states on science for over three decades, participating in nearly every science and research initiative in the region. So far, those initiatives have largely failed to bear fruit. "The state of science in this region remains terrible," says El-Baz.
But that could be about to change, as the Gulf States put their petrodollars into new initiatives. … Science research initiatives started in Gulf countries with the first oil-profit windfalls in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Yet comparing the money the Gulf States have racked up over the years with the evolvement of their research and education infrastructure evokes a glaring disparity. … The past few years, however, have witnessed a significant, if not radical, shift.
Multibillion-dollar institutions are now in operation or being established, and experimental projects are being set up to find the long-elusive answer to the question: how best to benefit from outside academia in nurturing home-grown science?
Answering this question has sent the Gulf states down different paths. All seem innovative, but which will be more successful in the long term remains to be seen. Access the full article>>