Call for Scientific Renaissance in Arab world
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Egyptian Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail called for a “scientific renaissance” in the Arab world, criticizing the region’s “bureaucracy” and lack of interest in research. He made the remarks at a meeting with University of Jordan professors and postgraduate students on Wednesday, one day before the university grants him an honorary PhD in arts and sciences in recognition of his “scientific position on a global scale.”
He listed the challenges facing Arabs as illiteracy, shortage of scientific products and “political and economic weakness.”
According to Zewail, the only domain Arab states have advanced in is bureaucracy, which he described as being “dangerous” for scientific research in these countries.
As a solution to the Arab scientific challenges, he suggested public education reform parallel with opening the door for more scientific research through the establishment of specialized centers with independent budgets, and “away from bureaucracy.”
Born in 1946 in Damanhur, Egypt, Zewail was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999 “for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy,” according to the Nobel Prize website. He is now director of the California-based Physical Biology Center for Ultra fast Science and Technology and professor of chemistry and physics at the California Institute for Technology.
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