November 04, 2006

IN a previous article (Sci-Tech World, Sept 16), I reflected upon the state of science in Muslim countries. I used the data gleaned from a scientometric study published recently by the OIC Standing Committee on Science and Technology (Comstech) to analyse trends in scientific productivity across the 57 member countries, made broad statistical comparisons and tried to put the trends in a global perspective.

While a word of caution against taking these data on face value was added, they, nonetheless, point towards the deplorable state of science and technology in the Muslim world. These data, however, need to be supplemented with more analyses before these can be employed for actual policymaking in Pakistan or across the Muslim world. I will return to this theme later on in this series of articles.

Today I plan to take my earlier analysis a step further and assess how Pakistan’s various universities and affiliated R&D departments fare vis-à-vis scientific productivity. Each of the 57 OIC member countries must take these broad publication figures and trends and supplement them with more quantitative and qualitative data and analysis to identify the unique strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within their scientific and technological infrastructure.

In the previous article, I looked at the top 25 more productive (in terms of publication frequency) institutions across the Muslim world and found that none of them belonged to the three largest Muslim countries — namely, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Indeed, of the 25 most scientifically productive institutions in the Muslim world, 10 are in Turkey, five in Egypt, and three in Malaysia.

Of the top 10 institutions seven are in Turkey. On this measure, the five leading scientific institutions are University Hacettepe (Turkey), University of Istanbul, Ankara University, Cairo University and Kuwait University. Interestingly, none of these institutions would probably feature among the top scientific institutions in the world.

I called this the “institutional deficit” in the Muslim world which our leaders and policymakers must address on an urgent basis. The importance of institutions in creating the right environment for scientific research cannot be overemphasised because it’s these institutions — and not countries — where actual scientific research takes place. Only sometimes do we find great institutions flourishing within really bad environments.

Top disciplines

So, where do we in Pakistan stand vis-à-vis scientific output and quality of scientific and technological institutions? As is obvious from the results of the Comstech study, the situation is not very encouraging. However, the issue merits a detailed discussion. Table-1 presents the top 10 disciplines (by number of publications between 2002 and 2005) in Pakistan. Plant sciences top the list with 268 publications over a three-year period — just under 100 publications per year. This obviously is not a track record to be proud of.

Various sub-disciplines of chemistry account for another 500 or so publications over a three-year period. Pharmacology and medicine had 150 or so publications and nuclear sciences and technology and public health made up the rest.

At least a couple of things stand out as one looks at this track record closely. First, one wonders whether or not this track record resembles that of a university department in a western university rather than a whole country of 150 million people that boasts more than 400 institutes of scientific and higher learning and is a self-proclaimed leader of science and technology in the entire Muslim world.

Somewhere in the brouhaha of being the first and only Muslim country with a nuclear bomb, we almost forgot that we aren’t at the top in scientific and engineering research in the very club that we are proud to be a “leader” of. Second, the disciplinary concentration among Pakistan’s publication counts is remarkable.

With the exception of nuclear science and technology, which may be described as somewhat high-tech, Pakistan’s paltry performance is focused on two disciplines: chemistry and plant sciences. While these disciplines are important in their own right — especially for a traditionally agricultural country like Pakistan — this lopsided focus is reflective of our lack of preparation for the scientific and technological revolution of the 21st century.

It also speaks volumes about the lack of connect between science and technology in Pakistan, whereby strength in the former (basic and applied sciences) does not really feed into the latter (for instance, engineering and technology). The picture may also be reflective of the lack of proportionality in the nation’s funding priorities, with a lot of resources going into particular disciplines (like agriculture, chemistry and nuclear sciences) at the expense of many others, thus depriving the country of a broad-based foundation for economic development, in general, and the next stage of technology-based economic development, in particular.

‘Prolific’ universities

Table-2 presents a picture of the top 10 universities in Pakistan (by publication count) according to the data compiled by Comstech. The list is worth some reflection.

Karachi University, primarily by virtue of its chemistry department, leads the pack with 1,222 publications over the ten-year period under review. The Quaid-i-Azam University and Aga Khan University rank second and third, respectively.

While it is not clear from the study which disciplines do researchers at Quaid-i-Azam University publish the most in, it is quite evident that many of these universities are uni-focal. For example, a majority of the publications from Karachi University are in chemistry. Also, some institutions are uni-focal by design (such as the Aga Khan University, University of Agriculture and Pinstech). Also, many of the more multi-disciplinary universities — namely, Peshawar University, Punjab University, Bahauddin Zakaria University and University of Sindh (Jamshoro) — with tens, even hundreds, of staff members have publication records that are not worth mentioning, although they conveniently make it to the list.

Conspicuous with their absence from the above list are several large or private sector universities — largely engineering and social sciences institutes — such as Nust, Lums, SZABIST, Hamdard, Iqra and IoBM. Many of these institutes have opened campuses in the last 10 years but numbers seem to substantiate their commercial (non-academic) focus.

A conspicuous absence from the Comstech data is that of information technology as a discipline. Pakistan entered the race for IT in the mid-1990s and has since touted its successes in the field. Its publication record, however, belies that.

Even a cursory look at the websites of certain private and public IT institutes (SZABIST, IBA, Lums, etc) reveals prominently displayed lists of faculty members with tens, if not hundreds, of publications to their credit. None of these institutes seem to have made it to the list, thus calling into question the claims of these institutes and individuals.

Several reasons could be cited for this. The Comstech study may be incomplete in its coverage of all major universities and institutions in Pakistan. The Comstech list, however, seems to have been compiled from the Web of Science database created by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) which is respected widely.

If Pakistani academics publish in journals not represented in the Web of Science database, we would fail to capture them in this list. Should this be the case, the Comstech study needs to be repeated to improve its coverage by using other scientific publications databases and sources as well.

Another possible reason might be that Pakistani scientists and researchers from the non-represented universities may not be publishing their results widely or their research may not be of good enough quality to be accepted in their discipline’s leading journals. Both these possibilities are not acceptable if scientific research is to grow and flourish in Pakistan.

Research that does not get shared leads to no further research (or recognition), thus seriously undermining its value not only to the individual but also to the country’s and the world’s scientific community at large. Should that be the case, this is a fundamental flaw in the orientation of the scientific community in the country.

Finally, one possible reason may be that these institutions are just too small to register on a publications count measure. These may be far from developing a critical mass that is necessary for developing a robust atmosphere for scientific research and productivity. Should that be the case, however, one must seriously question the wisdom in creating tens of new universities in the country over the last five to seven years. The ultimate reason for the above finding is perhaps a mix of these three hypotheses.

The judgment

Basing a final judgment on the publications count data is misleading at best and foolish at worst. There is a dire need to conduct more research towards better understanding the state of Pakistan’s scientific establishment. Fortunately, we have another source of data to put the earlier findings in some perspective.

A couple of years ago, the National Commission on Science and Technology (NCST) — the apex science and technology policymaking body in the country — under the auspices of the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology carried out an extensive peer review of the country’s university departments and related scientific establishments.

The purpose of the exercise was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each department in terms of faculty and research infrastructure (including equipment, library and laboratory facilities) to assess whether it had the technical expertise to impart MPhil/PhD level training; to examine the collaborative research activities of the department with both national and international institutes, universities and industry; if innovations had been commercialised, assess benefits of research to social/economic sectors; and to evaluate the performance of the department in imparting MPhil/PhD level training and the ability to win national/international grants.

Twenty-three disciplinary committees of the country’s most notable scientific experts were constituted to carry out these reviews and these committees were asked to visit each of the 400-odd university departments and institutes to present their recommendations on the above issues. As per PCST’s websites, 19 of these 23 committees have submitted their detailed findings alongside assessment of each individual department or research centre.

The findings of the study are available on the PCST’s website for the interested public. Table-3 summarises these results.

The results are short of shocking. Of the 15 disciplines shown above, only one discipline — biology, biotechnology and genetics — has departments or institutes that could be rated as “A” (an aggregate score of 70 per cent or more on a seven-criteria linear scale) by the peer review committee. For nine out of 15 disciplines, the leading Pakistani department barely managed to get a “B” and for three of the 15, the leading department got a “C” or “D” grade.

Especially deplorable is the state of affairs in mathematics where only one of the 18 departments surveyed scored a “B” and the rest scored either an “E”, “F” or “G” grade, meaning they failed to even get a passing grade. In statistics as well, the leading department got a “D” grade.

Organisational peer review is considered one of the most authentic and comprehensive measures of scientific quality primarily because they use the time-tested approach of using one’s peers’ evaluation of one’s scientific and research merit as an indicator of institutional quality.

The above ratings speak volumes about the state of scientific research in Pakistan. They are also broadly consistent with the trends on publications that we’ve already discussed above.

Interpreting the data

What does all this mean for the state of scientific research in Pakistan? These data do not speak well for the state of scientific research in Pakistan. While there may be islands of competence, it seriously calls into question the type of instruction and research carried out in the country.

Also, although prior data on scientific research in Pakistan is scanty, the last few years of relentless efforts don’t seem to have made a difference. Not yet, at least.

More important than that, though, it is important to think about how must these results be interpreted? What can be learnt from these data? And how must our policymakers use these findings?

Well, there is a clear need for more data to make effective policy for research and higher education in Pakistan. We must understand what motivates Pakistani scientists and researchers to do science? What are the motivations for those who publish and those who do not? What kind of incentives seem to make a difference? What kind of value do individuals and institutions that publish derive out of that activity? And what is the capacity of our institutions to enhance scientific research in short-, medium-, and long-term.

In order to address these questions in a comprehensive manner, we need better and more useful data. However, even these data, interpreted appropriately, can lead to the process of reflection and reform. The right way to react to these data would be to reflect honestly about where Pakistan’s achievements and failings lie and how to use them constructively as a springboard for thoughtful and purposeful action.

Carefully thinking about one’s objectives — and asking the right questions before seeking answers — and the kinds of institutions and programmes that would help achieve those objectives is critical before rushing into implementation. Today’s investments in Pakistani science are likely to pay off only in the medium- to long-run and it is important that these are made with a true understanding of both our potential and our deficiencies. Also, one must develop a sense-and-respond capacity to continually measure and monitor progress by being open to the possibility of re-evaluating one’s prior hypotheses and fine-tuning and adapting policies and programmes as results from these become available.

Only through an intelligent use of policy, followed by patient implementation, can Pakistan create a robust and productive scientific infrastructure that may contribute towards its long-term economic well-being.

The author athar.osama@gmail.com holds a PhD in science and technology policy and works for a technology and economic development consulting company

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