The scientific journal Nature published a report saying that Egypt is among the countries with the highest increase in scientific research production in world in 2018, the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reported on Monday.
Emerging economies showed a significant increase in scientific research production for 2018, according to estimates of the publishing services company Clarivate Analytics. Egypt and Pakistan topped the list, where Egypt achieved a rise of 21 percent, while Pakistan’s increase reached 15.9 percent.
China’s publications rose by about 15 percent, while India, Brazil, Mexico and Iran saw scientific output increase by more than 8 percent from the previous year, the report added.
Globally, research output increased by 5 percent in 2018 to an estimated 1,620,731 research papers listed in the Web of Science database, which is the highest ever.
The magazine pointed out that diversity in the field of science is a huge success. In 1980, only five countries provided 90 percent of all scientific research: the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan.
The analysis on scientific research included 40 countries with at least 10,000 research papers in the database.
The year-on-year forecasts are based on the number of scientific research papers published between January and August, due to a gap between the publication of papers and their appearance in the database.
During his speech at the National Conference for Scientific Research in March, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed the role of science and scientists to overcome challenges to Egypt’s development.
“You, the educated community, the wise intellectuals, and the clever, we need you, your minds and your research to overcome Egypt’s problems, and Egypt will take its place only with knowledge and science, and we are and will be more careful now and in the coming years to make every effort […] to achieve the result,” Sisi said.
“In Egypt now, or two or three years ago, we moved towards real support for scientific research, so we claim the place that Egypt deserves with the number of its population and the capabilities of its diverse people,” Sisi went on.
He continued to say, “As a government, we do all that can be done to push this trend and […] the state will provide all real support to [the research community].”
In August 2017, Sisi noted that the government is sparing no effort to support scientific research, adding that over the past three years the governmental expenditure on scientific research increased from LE 11.8 billion to LE 17.5 billion, an estimated 47-percent increase.
“The governmental support to scientific research is ongoing through the establishment of a number of national projects, such as the Egyptian Knowledge Bank and the Zewail Scientific City, in addition to the Egyptian-Japanese University,” Sisi explained at the time.
He went on to say that Egypt is currently is in dire need of scientific research, for the sake of improving the health, medical and agriculture sectors in Egypt, calling on Egypt’s NGO’s to participate effectively in supporting scientific research.
