Research Centers in the Islamic World and their Role in Policymaking

• Introduction:

The educated elites, including intellectuals and academics, effectively contribute to public policymaking in Western countries through research institutions that scientifically discuss and seek to improve public policy issues. In that sense, it is not left to political authorities alone to determine issues of public interest; society, represented by its experts and educated elites, also take part in working towards the common good. They also correct or reduce the possibility of error, minimize risks, and come up with new visions and creative ideas in various fields.

In our Islamic world, numerous countries have been suffering from a great deal of economic and social problems that have existed for many years, despite the existence of research institutions and the intellectual efforts of researchers and academics in issues of public policymaking and analysis. It must be noted, however, that these are less numerous than their counterparts in Western countries.

• Project description and importance:

The project attempts to answer a main question: To what extent can research institutions influence the process of public policymaking in the economic and social fields in the Islamic world?

In order to answer this question, a number of other sub-questions first need to be addressed: Are research centers in the Islamic world merely an extension of the Western experience, or are they purely national or Islamic with cultural aspects specific to their own spatial scopes? What is the nature of the relationship between these institutions and political authorities? To what extent are they interlinked or independent from each other? How connected are they to scientific movements? How influenced are they by scientific development? What effect do their outputs – be it a positive or negative effect – have on public policies, and do they impact them at all? As a next step, do these outputs impact the public interests of societies? How can the correlation between these outputs and reality be evaluated, and their effectiveness measured?

The answers to these questions are more likely to come from surveys than references. Therefore, the study focuses on examining these research centers, their “resumes” and work experience, while using real examples and applications. It tracks research, researchers, and research results, before making various comparisons within the Islamic world.

• Project division:

The project is divided into five chapters:

Introductory chapter: This includes basic introductions, such as defining what research centers are, and it presents the major different types of centers and the importance of each. It lists the kinds of projects these centers implement, the roles entrusted to them by society and the state, and the connection between the centers and processes of public policymaking and political and administrative decision-making. It also defines what research centers in the Islamic world are: their history, development, and various functional roles, as well as the nature of policies in general. It analyzes these policies and the role they play in stabilizing or undermining political, economic, and social systems. This chapter also presents some statistics and information on the mapping of research centers across the Islamic world in general and the Arab world in particular: their distribution, the areas in which they are most concentrated, and their societal roles and special interests.

Chapter One: This is related to defining goals, programs, and action plans: their bases and motives. It particularly addresses the management of research and development processes and the general strategies of policy research centers, the factors influencing their priorities and plans, and their sources of funding and financial resources. It studies how the endowment mechanism was invested in its funding, how transparent its funding is, and the impact this has on the definition of goals, programs, and action plans – taking into account whether these are linked to religious or political movements and lobbies.

Chapter Two: This discusses the effects of research centers and their relationship to and interactions with scientific movements. It particularly addresses the relationship between these research centers and universities and academic institutions, studying the interactions between them and comparing policy research centers to these entities at the level of influence, response, and interaction with authorities.

The chapter does not intend to shed light on the role of these centers in scientific development. It does not focus on the roles and policies of research centers within universities and academic institutions, nor on the way these interact. In general, it does not address the following aspects of the relationship of research centers to scientific movements: reliance on and benefitting from scientific movements in terms of tools, means, and results. The study is not about the role of centers in scientific research; rather it looks into the way these centers are impacted by scientific research, the extent to which they use this research to increase their own efficiency, whether they help formulate public policy related to social, economic, and political development, and, of course, whether they influence or are influenced by decision-makers.

Chapter Three: This analyzes the tools used by various research centers. It presents the most important research and procedural tools used by research centers, be they surveys, case studies, databases, etc., looking into how these tools are configured and dealt with. It studies the extent of their potency and influence, considering that they are the backbone of research centers. It also takes into account the quality of their researchers and their relationship to political authority. In addition, it addresses legislation regulating, supporting, or restricting the work of these centers, and the resulting obstacles or opportunities to achieve results.

In conclusion, the fourth chapter analyzes the research results, evaluation criteria, and the results’ effectiveness and relationship to reality, be it positive or negative. It does so by discussing the actual role of research centers in the Islamic world by identifying and critiquing Western and Arab evaluation criteria, the research results and their impact on political and administrative decisions, as well as the effectiveness of research centers in terms of their motives and incentives on one hand, and the problems and obstacles standing in the way of their effectiveness on the other.

The scope of the project includes:

• The expertise of the Islamic world in analyzing the aforementioned elements by reviewing the most prominent experiences of research centers located in Islamic countries. This includes their resources and priorities, their general plans and challenges, and their global presence, each of which is studied in light of the points mentioned in the previous chapters. The analysis is conducted on three levels: public policy, economic policy, and social policy.
• The expertise of the Islamic world at the level of research tools and databases, and Arab presence at the level of source and monitoring platforms related to scientific research and research efforts presented in this field.
• Responsible authorities, active entities, the extent of the centers’ influence and impact, and qualitative and quantitative developments in each mentioned category, with a focus on highlighting the specificities of some countries and regions such as: the Arab region, Iran, the Arab Gulf, and the Arab Maghreb. The major differences between research centers in each region will be explained to avoid falling into false generalizations.
• The systems and laws related to the work done by these centers, and the dimensions of each topic discussed in the different chapters, be they related to defining goals and programs, specific effects and interactions, or tools and results, etc.
• The overall picture of the publications and research achievements of the most prominent research centers, as well as the largest amount of these. Showing their general trends, distribution across fields, and major topics addressed in terms of policymaking. Identifying how much of these are related to major phenomena and vital problems in the Islamic world in general, and the relative countries in particular, to enrich the research included in the project and support and confirm its results.