Conclusion

We talk about research, about our colleagues, and about us. We can’t limit it to radical criticism, a simple temptation, since we will get downhearted and risk disempowering the research community to which we belong. We have sought to criticize the situation of research, acknowledging the dramatic transformation of our societies, without nostalgia for the old times when the state took care of the little research that was being done and the universities where we were studying. We tried to analyze research practices and research institutions as complex social activities that are fragmented, and to a large extent still not recognized socially and politically. They are mirrors of the research systems elsewhere, they are created in close relation to the global world and are the ferment of an intense international activity; but they also reflect the social and political problems in the Arab world. The policies devised by international organizations, mainly the World Bank as we have shown, have been organized around the idea that it might be necessary to promote “knowledge economies,” to transform the Arab economies into knowledge economies. We have defended the argument that this might not necessarily be the best and only possible way to go, in that it is an impossible promise delivered to the Arab world that will not be attained, generating a lot of frustration. Some of this knowledge economy already exists, some fragments are already there (enterprises, labs, incubators, etc.), and the question is how these fragments will mirror specific willingness and creativity of social actors, but very little will rely – if the “knowledge economy” agenda is pursued – on the scientific community itself. This knowledge economy appears more as an impossible promise to fulfill but it sounds agreeable to the ears of the Arabs that have become increasingly aware of their chronic state of underdevelopment in science and technology. Thanks to the Arab uprisings, this acute sense of unequal status has been highly

enhanced, and its remains to be understood how this rare mix of cultural proudness and voluntary action will end. The bell was rung before in recent history, when the Arab renaissance (nahda) occurred, another unfulfilled promise. But more recently, the three Arab Human Development reports under the protective name of the UNDP advocated for a stronger role for education, greater freedom and the improvement of the living and social status of women in the Arab region. The controversy raised by the criticism these reports contained on the backwardness of the education systems and the lack of research triggered intense reflection, which partially found its way into the 2009, 2010-2011 and 2014 Arab Knowledge Reports produced by the Al Maktoum Foundation and UNDP. What survived in the process was a politically innocuous policy orientation toward more research. This happened because of the political risk that the former exercise had entailed, and due to the fact that Arab governments had taken into their hands the intellectual exercise of describing the state of research. Nonetheless, inside society, the initial call for greater freedom was accompanied by another one: over the last ten years, in every Arab country, scientists and policy-makers involved in education and research (very often former scientists themselves) have been trying very hard to transform their research systems. They have tried to do this by creating a space for science inside the political arena and inside their administrations and institutions. They have worked diligently at a very slow pace and have secured, finally, a few small and fragile commitments. Governments usually discovered for themselves that when scientists began working, all sorts of unpredicted benefits appeared. However, many of these Arab governments have not yet taken the political risks entailed by the scientific activity: they discouraged, if not prevented, any intermediary scientific association that might have significant inputs. The engagement with science policy in recent years differs greatly from one country to another, and is interpreted diversely by different social groups. Research policies are not all geared toward promoting the independence and prestige of Arab governments; there are many other reasons why research has been needed, requested and carried out in the region. In all cases, it was a movement originating from the institutions, universities, schools, research institutes, and some policy-makers, which sought to secure resources for research. In the process, governments (sometimes) discovered that science is no longer simply a fashionable, cultural and entertaining “social” activity; it is now professionalized worldwide and, more importantly, quite expensive. Some countries outside the Arab region, such as Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, Tunisia, Turkey and South Africa, have shown that in a very short time there can be a spectacular increase in the level of spending on and benefits accruing from research. The question is whether the Arab region is ready for such a major overhaul. No policy can engineer society, despite claims of “evidence-based policies” or, before them, technocratic projects that had the objective to modernize, even without the people’s consent. We have given some examples of recommendations based on the kind of analysis proposed here (see especially the conclusion in Chapter 3). In the concluding sections, we would like to remind what would

be the conditions for this major overhaul that Arab societies have to undertake. We insist on four major socio-cognitive elements that deeply affect research in the Arab region and which will necessarily be part of any substantial change: the model of development the Arab region wants to adopt, the trust it will put in science, the conduciveness of the social environment to the development of science, and finally the link between research and society, especially in the case of social science.