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UNESCO’s Seventh Science Report found that the world saw an increase in scientific research expenditure between 2014 and 2018, by 19.2%, faster than the increase in global average income, which did not increase. not exceeded 14.8%.
This rise is mainly due to the large funds invested by both the United States and China to a large extent, which is the bright side of the trends in scientific research spending, while there is a pale face depicted in presence of about 80% of countries in the world that have not exceeded the threshold of 1% of their public income.
The report – released on June 11, titled “Race Against Time for Smarter Development,” which is released every five years to paint a clear picture of new global trends in scientific research – found that the increase in expenditure was offset by an increase in the number of scientific researchers, by 13.5%.
Poor expenses for Arabs
According to this report, Arab countries have not made much progress in the area of spending on science, as the percentage fell from 0.48% in 2014 to only 0.59% in 2018, and this is mainly due to political problems that the region has experienced, which has hampered its economic growth.
But there are exceptions ; The United Arab Emirates recorded the largest increase in the region, rising from 0.69% in 2014 to 1.30% in 2018, followed by Egypt, which invested 0.72% of its government revenue in 2018, against 0.64 in 2014.
The report highlighted the example of the United Arab Emirates, which has almost doubled its spending on scientific research and currently contributes 0.42% of global spending on scientific research.
Globally, some countries recorded a decline in their public spending, such as Japan which fell from 3.40 to 3.20%, Russia from 1.05 to 0.99%, and Canada from 1.72 at 1.57%.
This uneven increase in spending on scientific research has been offset by an increase in the number of researchers, with the Arab region experiencing a slight increase on average, from 536 researchers per million inhabitants in 2014 to 682 researchers in 2018.
Jordan ranked first in the Arab world to increase the number of its researchers, surpassing many countries in the world, with a rate of nearly 150%, followed by Iraq with 60%, then Bahrain with 58% and the United Arab Emirates with 20%.
Arab countries have not made much progress in terms of spending on science or the number of researchers (UNESCO)Health and artificial intelligence in the foreground
The report confirms that the global increase in the number of scientific researchers resulted in an increase in the number of scientific publications in 2019 by 21% compared to 2015, research which has seen dominance in the fields of health, environment and artificial intelligence, and the number of publications in artificial intelligence – for example – in 2019 Around 150,000 scientific articles.
According to the report, many countries around the world have oriented their interests towards this specialization; Over the past five years, more than 30 countries have developed special strategies for the development of artificial intelligence research, including China, America, Russia, India, Mauritius and Vietnam. India ranks first in the world in terms of number of scientific publications, particularly in this field, while Morocco tops the Arab world, followed by Iraq, then Jordan.
In the field of renewable energies, scientific publications have experienced an increase, even if they are not at the level of other disciplines, since they have gone from around 71,000 publications in 2011 to more than 108,000 in 2019. India ranks first in the world in the number of searches in 2019, while Saudi Arabia ranks first at the Arab level, followed by Egypt.
Despite all this, the report states that around 70% of scientific publications are not accessible to most scientific researchers in the world, and this is a form of inequality of opportunity between researchers around the world, and between countries. should strive to remove this obstacle.
The fields of health, environment and artificial intelligence dominate global scientific interests (UNESCO)The report indicates that UNESCO has been working since 2019 to put in place a system allowing all researchers in the world to access new scientific research, a procedure that could be approved in November 2021.
In contrast, China ranked first in the number of patents globally, with a share of 29%, followed by America 20%, Japan 18.4% and Europe 14.4%.
The “militarization” of the aerospace industry
The report also noted the opening of the space industry, which includes the specialization of wireless communications, to the private sector, due to the importance and size of the global market, which has seen amazing developments; In Africa alone, the aerospace industry has reached nearly $ 10 billion.
And in January 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to send humans into space, when it oversaw the transport of astronauts to the International Space Station.
The report indicates that the US agency “NASA” has dealt extensively in recent years with private companies in many operations that have become routine for them, in order to devote themselves to more important tasks such as the exploitation of space. distant.
UNESCO report raised fears of ‘militarization’ of space after several countries created military space entities (Unsplash)In the rest of the world, space industries are experiencing exciting development. As in the United Arab Emirates – for example – which were able to launch the “Hope” probe, and also in Africa, whose countries are seeking to establish the African Space Agency, which will be based in Egypt.
But the race for space and the development of the space industries which ensues from it have become, in recent years, the attention of the military and army chiefs in many countries. This caused the creation of undeclared political problems between these countries.
The United States triggered the surprise when it announced in February 2019 the birth of a new unit of its military forces, called the “Space Force”, which was part of the Air Force. Then, many countries – like France, China and Russia – announced the creation of military space forces.
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