Kingdom top patents holder in Arab world
The Kingdom has the most patents registered globally in the Arab world, followed by Kuwait with 14 percent and Egypt 12 percent, said Mohammed Al-Jasser, minister of economy and planning, recently.
During the University Invents conference launched by Crown Prince Muqrin, deputy premier, at King Saud University, he said: “We are proud of the Kingdom’s achievements in innovation.”
Al-Jasser said that King Saud University was playing a major role in helping the ministry prepare a strategy to transform the country into a knowledge economy. Link
An opportune time for new think tanks in Saudi Arabia
Immediately, this government [of King Salman] will be faced with the need to accelerate the transition to a knowledge economy, an aim that is vital to its far-reaching goal of economic diversification beyond oil. This transformation is also a critical adaptation to the processes of structural changes in the global economy based on accelerating flows of information, knowledge, capital, and people across state boundaries. …
Among the G20 countries, the Kingdom ranks last in the total number of think tanks and the second lowest behind India in the number of citizens per think-tank. Another benchmark, the authoritative Global Go-To Think Tank Report (2014), only records 7 Saudi think tanks compared with 39 in Tunisia, 14 in the UAE and 29 in Turkey. Only one Saudi-based think tank, the Gulf Research Center, featured in the ranking of the top 150 think-tanks worldwide. …
Think tanks therefore can play a pivotal role in supporting the Kingdom’s transition to knowledge economy. The new wave of think tanks will contribute to the processes of innovation in three overarching ways: directing the production of knowledge, functioning as a bridge of ideas, and serving as a connector of talent. These three functions are connected to a fourth function of think tanks, namely one being an enabler of government in devising innovative approaches to raising government performance and service delivery. …
A third function of think tanks in Saudi Arabia is that they can equip the younger generation of highly qualified Saudi graduates with policy-relevant experience and leadership training. Programs such as the King Abdullah Scholarship Program and others are transforming the nature of the Saudi workforce and creating a large pool of emerging leaders who will spearhead the ongoing transformation of the Kingdom into a knowledge economy. Link
Africa Needs IP Protection to Build Knowledge Economies
The next generation of African entrepreneurs and scientists need support to protect their ideas, says Paul Boateng. Link … Lord Boateng is currently the cochair of the African IP Trust and trustee of the Planet Earth Institute, an NGO working to support science, technology and innovation in Africa. He can be contacted at planetearth@planetearthinstitute.org.uk. This opinion was commissioned to accompany a two hour online live debate on Africa’s knowledge economy that SciDev.Net will be hosting on the 24th of April from 1300 to 1500 British Summer Time (GMT+1). The debate staged in conjunction with the Planet Earth Institute will explore some of the myths, risks and rhetoric surrounding Africa’s knowledge economy.