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Formation of startups and new companies
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System of laws, regulations, strategies, and funding priorities
Discovery and creation of new knowledge of the natural world
Application of new knowledge towards useful social ends
By Murtaza Haider, Published at Dawn.Com on November 2, 2011
A recent public opinion poll revealed that the top-most research priority areas identified by Pakistanis included Chemistry, Urdu literature, Islamic studies, Arabic, Botany and Zoology. Those who responded to the survey asked of Pakistani academics to devote their energies on the above-mentioned research areas and requested the governments to fund additional research in Chemistry and other basic sciences.
You are not alone in wondering how you missed seeing the results of this critical opinion poll in which Pakistanis identified research priority areas for the nation. In fact, no such poll exists. But what exists is a list of 7,151 Ph.D. dissertations completed since independence in Pakistan, which shows that most frequent research subjects included Chemistry, Urdu literature, Islamic studies, Arabic, Botany and Zoology.
The following graph is a pictorial representation of the subject areas used to categorise the 7,151 doctoral dissertations. The size of each subject area is in proportion to how frequently it appeared in the list thus revealing Chemistry and other basic sciences along with Islamic studies and Urdu being the most common research areas for doctoral dissertations in Pakistan. Education and agronomy are rare examples of frequent research topics that address immediate needs in Pakistan.
By: A. A. Khan
Published on 29 September 2011 at SciDev.Net
The ten-year science roadmap was presented to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
[ISLAMABAD] In a major policy shift, Pakistan’s government has declared science and innovation as a “central pillar of socio-economic development”, and has promised to increase research spending from 0.59 to two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020.
Pakistan’s ‘Science, Technology and Innovation Policy’ — more than three years in the making — outlines a ten-year roadmap for developing science and technology (S&T) and recognises innovation as a central part of the country...
By: T. V. Padma Reporting from World Conference of Science Journalists in Doha
Pu blished on SciDev.Net on 29 June 2011
Science journalists in the Gulf States should be more critical
The Muslim world stands at a unique moment in its relation to evolutionary theory, according to the co-author of a major survey into attitudes towards evolution among Muslims around the world.
Acceptance of evolution varies widely across the Islamic world, demonstrating that stereotypical ideas about Islam and evolution are wrong, said Salman Hameed, director of the Centre for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies (SSiMS) at Hampshire College, United Sates.
But ideas are being ...
By: Dr. Athar Osama
Of late, the National ICT R&D Fund has been in the news a lot and its performance (or lack of it) over the last several years has been a source of much concern for IT professionals and informed citizens like myself. It is no secret that since the departure of its last CEO, the ICT R&D Fund has become the subject of a power tussle between those who think that it had served a useful purpose and must continue under the leadership of an able professional and those who don’t care who runs it as long as it serves their vested interests. The Fund is too precious an experiment for us to allow it to fail and the people who have fought long...
By: Athar Osama, Adil Najam, Shamsh Kassim-Lakha, Zulfikar Gilani and Christopher King
Published in Nature on Sept 3, 2009
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. H...
By: Athar Osama
Published on SciDev.Net on 15 December 2011
Arab Spring revolutionaries turning to governance must adopt knowledge and innovation as barometers for progress, says Athar Osama.
As revolutions swept countries and shook governments across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region this year, they created opportunities for greater public voice in governance. Tunisia, for example, recently went through an election, and the Egyptian people are in the process of electing an assembly whose job is to write a new constitution.
And as revolutionaries turn to governance, they will have to address the socioeconomic and cultural challenges facing ten...
By: Frank Lehner
Published in Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy on 30 August 2011.
The idea of generating solar energy on a large scale in the sun-intensive countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to satisfy their own increasing energy demand and to export surplus energy to Europe as advocated in the DESERTEC concept1 has publicly received much attention in some countries, particularly in Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and also substantial support from their governments. Besides the DESERTEC Foundation, an industrial consortium (Dii GmbH) was founded in 2009 which consists of major European and MENA companies to push this project further b...
By: Dr. Athar Osama
Muslim-Science.Com met with Tan Sri Dr. Omar Abdur Rahman, Mahathir’s Science Advisor for over a decade and half and, the “prime mover” behind Mahathir Mohammed’s vision of a Knowledge-driven Malaysia. A deeply humble man, Tan Sri Omar insists that Mahathir was a science policymaker par excellence in his own right and that he would hardly have needed a science advisor. However, he played a critical role in providing scientific credibility to Mahathir’s plans and helping the Prime Minister reach out to the scientific community to build support for his policies.
As Malaysia’s first and longest serving Science Advisor – a position t...
