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Qatar seeks to reverse Arab brain drain
 DOHA - Qatar is to try to reverse the Arab brain drain that has seen thousands of experts leave the region by bringing together expatriate Arab scientists at annual forums starting in April. The meetings will be held at Education City, an academic complex on the edge of Doha, which hosts branches of prestigious US colleges and has the objective of promoting scientific and technological research.More than 15,000 Arab physicians left their countries to go abroad between 1998 and 2000, according to a study by the UN Development Program (UNDP). Arab academics and scientists are often faced with a lack of adequate job opportunities at home, combined with a lack of public or private funding for research and development. Not only do industrialised nations, usually the United States or in Europe, offer better research opportunities, they also offer much higher salaries.
The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, described as a non-governmental, non-profit organisation, was set up in 1995 by the wife of Qatars emir, Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Misned. Education City, launched in October 2003, hosts top tier US academic institutions, including Virginia Commonwealth University, Texas A and M University, and Weill Cornell Medical College, and a branch of the renowned New York school. A scientific and technological park within the city has attracted such household names as Microsoft, which has set up a research unit there, as have European aircraft maker Airbus, oil giants Total and Shell, and General Motors, the worlds leading car maker. By bringing together Arab scientists currently living abroad, the Qatar Foundation wants them to take part in promoting a culture of scientific research in the Arab world while giving them an opportunity to carry out their scientific projects, Hajari said. Their input would also help Education City provide a sound education to new generations, he told AFP. By entering into such a strategic partnership, Arab scientists will help us better draft our budgets, identify our needs in terms of infrastructure equipment, and even adapt legislation to take into consideration their intellectual copyrights, Hajari said. Unless they are reassured in terms of legislation, Qatar will not be able to attract them, said Hajari, adding that his foundation was not necessarily seeking the physical repatriation of Arab scientists. We have no objection to cooperating with a scientist who prefers to go on living in a foreign country, he said.
Qatar Foundation is in the process of setting up a fund for scientific research, Hajari said without giving figures. Qatar Foundations financial policy relies on bank deposits invested in accordance with Islamic law and whose dividends are used to fund projects, he said, noting that the Qatari rulers wife had offered an eight-billion-dollar grant to a university and research hospital currently under construction at Education City. The city is negotiating the opening of branches of French and US universities, the former to teach public administration and the latter journalism.
Posted by: Steve White 2006-03-20 |
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