Science and technology in Jordan
[1][2] Established in 1987, Jordan's Higher Council for Science and Technology is an independent public body that acts as a national umbrella organisation for scientific research.
A review of the national innovation system indicated that research was not doing enough to support economic expansion and find solutions to enduring issues like those involving water, energy, and food.
The observatory will maintain the country's first comprehensive database of domestic research and is to be hosted by the Higher Council for Science and Technology.
The National Innovation Strategy, 2013–2017 had been prepared in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, with the support of the World Bank.
Targeted fields include energy, environment, health, ICTs, nanotechnology, education, engineering services, banking and clean technologies.
The fund backs entrepreneurial ventures and helps Jordanian companies to solve technical problems; it also encourages private bodies to allocate resources for R&D and provides university students with scholarships based on merit.
[3] Jordan boasts relatively mature higher education infrastructure that includes some of the oldest universities in the Arab world.
Other universities and public and private research institutes of note in the country include: Among major science and technology events are the MENA ICT Forum, while organizations associated with higher education include the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, which issues a number of science journals.
[3] Table: Share of female Arab researchers (%) Selected countries, in head counts Source: For Jordan, UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
With 146 publications per million inhabitants in 2014, Jordan's output in terms of scientific papers was of median level in the Arab world.
It is surpassed by Qatar (548 per million), Saudi Arabia (371), Tunisia (276), Lebanon (203), Kuwait (174), the United Arab Emirates (154) and Oman (151) for this indicator.
Table: Patent applications in Arab states, 2010–2012 For countries with more than 15 patent applications in 2012 Source: UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 (2015), Table 17.5 Jordan is home to the King Abdullah II Design and Development Bureau (KADDB), an independent government entity within the Jordanian Armed Forces that develops defence products and security solutions for the region.
[10] There are 400 companies in Jordan operating across the spectrum of telecom, information technology (IT), online and mobile content, business outsourcing and video game development.
[11][12] Roba al Assi, a Jordanian blogger who currently works at Bayt.com managing the sub-division, Bayt Communities, attributes much of the credit for Jordan's booming ICT sector to the open source community, citing groups and organizations like the Jordan Open Source Association, GeekFest and Amman Tech Tuesdays.
Once connected to the national grid, the solar facility will supply the annual power needs of around 110,000 homes and displace an estimated 360,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
Masdar has selected International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, to oversee the funding of what will be the largest solar power plant in Jordan.
[15] The combined output of the Tafila wind farm and Baynouna solar project will account for nearly 18% of the 1.8 GW of renewable energy that Jordan plans to install by 2020.
[15] Jordan will launch its first nano-satellite Cubesat in February 2018, with the name of JY1; the late King Hussein's amateur radio call sign.
The satellite is being constructed by university students who received a two-month internship at NASA previously, through an initiative launched by the country's Crown Prince Foundation.
One of the strategy's key objectives is to involve the private sector more in regional and interdisciplinary collaboration, in order to add economic and development value to research and make better use of available expertise.
[3] Jordan hosts a world-class research facility which is also fostering scientific co-operation, the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), which was officially inaugurated on 17 May 2017 but had begun conducting experiments earlier.
The light source acts like a super X-ray machine and can be used by researchers to study everything from viruses and new drugs to novel materials and archaeological artifacts.
The center's mission is ‘to assist member countries and their public and private organizations to acquire the necessary tools and capabilities to accelerate socio-economic development.
[3] In 1986, a handful of scientists persuaded the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and others in the developing world to create the Islamic World Academy of Sciences, which is headquartered in Amman, Jordan This independent, apolitical, non-governmental organization receives seed funding from Jordan and raises funds for its activities from the OIC and other international bodies, including United Nations agencies.
The Islamic World Academy of Sciences combines three functions:[18] Within the International Continental Drilling Program, researchers from Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority implemented a scientific project which entailed a deep-drilling expedition to the Dead Sea in 2010.
