Building a knowledge-society is one of the priorities of a government as it forms the foundation of a country’s development. Hence sustained efforts are made to acquire a great deal of cumulative and fruitful know-how. In the Sultanate of Oman, the authorities believe in the use of research results to sustain national development plans and find solutions to the issues facing its society through innovations.
Research and innovation in the country is inspired by the speech of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik on February 23 last year when he said, “On top of our national priorities is the education sector. It will receive full attention, and it will be provided with a supporting environment, which motivates research and innovation.”
Oman Vision 2040, the gateway to become a developed nation under His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, aims at promoting the country’s position in different sectors over the next two decades.
For this purpose, the Vision document sketches “a national system that empowers human capabilities in the educational sector and nurtures scientific research, innovation, and creativity to build a knowledge-based economy and society”.
The National Innovation Strategy (NIS) guides the country’s institutions to place the NIS’s initiatives as the top priorities to achieve Oman Vision 2040. This has led to the increase in the number of indicators of the country on the Global Innovation Index (GII).
ENRICHING RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT
The Vision 2040 stresses on improving educational outcomes that have become necessary to build the Omanis’ confidence in their identity and commitment to their social values.
In line with the other sectors, the research and innovation sector at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MoHERI) continues its efforts in building research and innovation capabilities.
It has developed the Oman Research Portal, which aims to establish an integrated system to provide many electronic platforms and complementary tools to facilitate and enrich the research environment in the country.
During 2020, MoHERI funded as many as 248 research projects through the Block Funding Programme, covering research support grants for holders of PhD, master’s and bachelor degrees, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students who are studying abroad at their own expense.
A total of 28 governmental and private institutions in the country benefited from the support for this year, including various communications and IT sectors, the environment and natural resources sector, the health and community service sector, the energy and industry sector, and the education and human resources sector.
The financial aid provided to support and finance the approved research projects has amounted to RO 1.2 million.
Through the portal, a researcher can submit their research proposal from anywhere with Internet access. The results of the evaluation of the submitted proposal and evaluation reports can also be followed up through the portal. The researcher can access the portal if their institution is affiliated with the ministry or if they are registered as independent researchers.
CHALLENGES
Acknowledging the key role of innovation as a driver of economic development, it will be necessary for policymakers to be able to measure and assess outcomes. For this, they will require innovation indicators beyond the traditional metrics of inputs, such as the level of funding of research and development. The Sultanate of Oman’s economy is dominated by large firms that operate mostly in the petrochemical and natural resources, construction and trade sectors. Even though the innovative activity in those companies is not negligible, it is insufficient to spur innovation throughout the economy and buttress the functioning of a meaningful national innovation system.
Recent studies stress on the need for a system that will enhance marketing of research output through raising awareness in the business sector about the added value of research. It should be made mandatory that the private sector allocates a portion of their annual net profit to finance research and development.
This should be in exchange for benefiting from the know-how and activities of universities and higher education institutions in developing their production programmes. Also there should be a joint database between researchers and institutions to achieve better results, and increasing exchange visits by researchers.
One of the major challenges facing research is how to convince the private sector to support and engage in research projects. Also, there is a lack of diversity in funding sources for researchers, like research agreements with more international research centres and universities.
Much like in other areas, most research is concentrated in Muscat, with just under half of the identified universities and colleges located in the capital areas. Recently, Al Batinah North has emerged as a centre for research and innovation.
The government has been leading on several Smart City hackathons aimed at fostering the youth, entrepreneurs and businesses to generate applications and proof of concepts leveraging data in key areas of growth in line with the Vision 2040.
No doubt, establishment of an efficient national innovation system can lead to a more diversified, more productive and more sustainable economy, with higher quality and more attractive jobs.
