Muslim-Science.Com

By: Athar Osama, Adil Najam, Shamsh Kassim-Lakha, and Christopher King

Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7260/full/461038a.html

In 2002, Pakistan began an ambitious overhaul of its higher-education system. The successes and failures of the experience hold lessons for other countries, say Athar Osama and co-authors.

After decades of neglect, in 2002 Pakistan set out to dramatically reform its higher-education system. The reforms were designed to reverse years of chronic underfunding, to invest in the academic workforce and to revitalize a moribund research enterprise.

The article is not available in full text except to subscribers and others with access to academic journals. However, Adil Najam - one of the co-authors - has written a summary and excerpts which is posted below from Pakistaniat.com:

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Muslim-Science.Com is supporting the launch of Scientists, Engineers, and Innovators Perceptions and Motivations Study (SEI-PMS) aimed at scientific professionals from developing countries working both at home and abroad (as expatriates). While ideas of what motivates scientists and engineers have been well-established in the literature, there have not been many systematic studies to understand the motivations and perceptions of scientists in developing world and the attitude of expatriate talent towards their research environment in their home countries.

If you are a scientist or an engineer engaged in research and development (R&D) working in a developing country or an expatriate working abroad, and you haven’t already taken the Survey, we urge you to consider taking it.  [Click Here to Take the Survey]

The purpose of this survey is to collect baseline data on Performance, Perceptions, and Motivations of Scientists, Engineers, and Innovators from developing countries living both in their countries of origin and abroad. The purpose of this survey is three-fold:

1. It aims to identify, empirically, differences in work type, motivations, attitudes, and performance between scientists and engineers from developing countries working in developing countries and those working in the developed world.  

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Nature 461, 11-12 (3 September 2009) | doi:10.1038/461011b; Published online 2 September 2009

Cash costs

Massive funding for Pakistan’s ailing universities holds many lessons for other developing nations.

Eight years ago, a task force advising Pakistan’s former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, laid out a bold plan to revitalize the country’s moribund research system: initiate a fivefold increase in public funding for universities, with a special emphasis on science, technology and engineering. The proposal was a radical departure from conventional wisdom on the economics of developing nations, which favours incremental investments. Sudden surges of cash are held to be dangerous in poorer countries, which often lack the institutions or the calibre of people required to make the most of such a windfall, and the money can easily be wasted or fall prey to corruption.

Nonetheless, Musharraf agreed to the proposal. The reforms began in 2003. And the results, which have now earned a qualified thumbs-up from a group of experts in science and education policy (see page 38), offer some valuable lessons for other developing nations.

First, conventional wisdom isn’t always right. Despite early doubts that Musharraf’s autocratic regime could allocate the new funds effectively, the experts cite initiatives such as a free national digital library and high-speed Internet access for universities as examples of success, as well as new scholarships enabling more than 2,000 students to study abroad for PhDs — with incentives to return to Pakistan afterwards. And they acknowledge that the years of reform have coincided with increases in the number of Pakistani authors publishing in research journals, especially in mathematics and engineering, as well as boosting the impact of their research outside Pakistan.

Second, human capital matters. One concern raised by the report published in this issue is that the 3,500 candidates for Pakistan’s new domestic PhD programmes have had lower qualifications than the candidates going abroad. But that is a situation that should correct itself over time as Pakistan’s schools improve. For the time being, the more important point is that Pakistan has opened up the chance of a research degree to many more people than in the past — including those who do not have wealthy families, or access to influential people, or good skills in European languages. Harnessing those reserves of talent is an integral part of any nation’s development.

Finally, accountability is essential. This was not a priority for the architects of Pakistan’s educational reform, partly because they were working for an autocratic regime, and partly because they were in too much of a hurry. The government seemed to be living on borrowed time, Musharraf’s science adviser, Atta-ur-Rahman, has recalled. On the one hand, politicians, judges and lawyers were pressing for a return to democracy; on the other, the influence of the Pakistani Taliban was increasing. Suicide bombers twice tried to assassinate Musharraf — once by blowing up his motorcade as he returned from making a speech to scientists. If the reformers didn’t get their programme in place quickly, they feared they might not get it in place at all.

The result, however, is that the body created to implement the reforms, the Higher Education Commission, has operated with minimal oversight by academics, parliamentarians or anyone else. There has been some waste, although no one has yet accused the commission of egregious abuses of power. But it has exhibited blind spots that an outside influence might have corrected — notably a total lack of investment in the social sciences and policy research, disciplines that encourage the asking of questions that autocratic regimes frequently dislike answering.

This must change. Pakistan is no longer a dictatorship. The elected government, under President Asif Ali Zardari, has expressed cautious support for continuing Musharraf’s education reforms. It therefore has an opportunity to build on their successes and correct their shortcomings — starting with an independent review of the commission’s performance.

[Editor: Full text is available online (here). This is being published here to compliment the above post on the Nature HEC article]

By: Abdalla Alnajjar
3 October 2007
Source: SciDev.Net
The Muslim world need not lag behind in science and technology. Abdalla Alnajjar looks at an initiative that is charting a new approach.

Science, technology and innovation are now viewed alongside natural resources, capital and people as key ingredients for economic development and growth. Many industrialised countries and newly emerging economies — such as China, South Korea, Taiwan and India — have invested heavily in all three and reaped handsome dividends.

Unfortunately, the countries of the Middle East and the broader Muslim world have lagged behind as they continue with their pattern of wholesale import and adoption of science and technology from elsewhere.

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By: Athar Osama
3 October 2007
Source: SciDev.Net
Muslim countries need good quality institutions to motivate researchers, argues Athar Osama.

Describing scientific productivity in the 57 countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) as abysmal is perhaps an understatement. More than 1.5 billion Muslims living across the Islamic world — about a quarter of the world’s population — generate a little over one per cent of the world’s scientific literature and have produced only two scientific Nobel Prize winners.

Commentators often attribute this malaise to a host of cultural, religious and historical factors. But this misses an important element: the absence of quality institutions and incentives for science in the Islamic world. To paraphrase a Bill Clinton campaign slogan: It’s the economics, stupid.

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By: Munir Nayfeh
3 October 2007
Source: SciDev.Net
Muslim countries should harness their huge diaspora and support collaboration between their expatriate and local scientists, says Munir Nayfeh.

In the last 50 years, huge numbers of intellectuals have migrated from the Muslim world to industrialised countries. Studies estimate the number is almost 500,000 from the Arab world alone, comprising a third of the entire diaspora of professionals from developing countries to the West.

While doctors form about half of this exodus, scientists account for about 15 per cent.
Many of these professionals have been highly successful, accounting for 1-2 per cent of positions at the most prestigious institutions in Europe and the United States, and contributing significantly to the development of science and technology in the West.

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