Bridging science and business

“Support to Research, Technological Development, Innovation Initiatives and Strategies in Jordan (SRTD)” is the title of an EU-funded project that aims at boosting Jordan’s scientific and technological capacities. But the main beneficiary is the business community at large.

Nessrine Mansour - Amman, Eurojar

In Jordan, scientific research is focused on theoretical rather than experimental and applied studies research, and suffers from lack of network connection between researchers who often work in relative isolation. Not to mention that the research budget allocated by the private sector is limited. In spite of the existence of numerous research papers in Jordan, it should be noted that they’re not adequately exploited so far. The European Union is working on increasing the Kingdom’s scientific and technological capacity by fostering research and innovation and linking them to the private sector.

In this framework, a EU-funded project was launched under the title of “Support to Research, Technological Development, Innovation Initiatives and Strategies in Jordan”. According to Raghda Kilani, director of the project, its aim is to accelerate the networking of Jordanian researchers with the European Research Community, to increase the marketing potential of research and technological added-value projects as well as to build bridges between research and industrial sector.

The project is funded by the EU with 4 million Euros. Kilani says that the Higher Council for Science and Technology and Jordan Enterprise are co-funding some of its activities, through the Project Management Unit within the HCST. The Higher Council for Science and Technology supports Research and Development, the Jordan enterprise contributes for its part to the development of new start-up businesses.

The project has launched its activities in 2007. Since then, SRTD provides Jordanian researchers with information about EU-funded Research, Development and Innovation programs, and helps them find research partners to develop their ideas and come up with common projects.

Research and Innovation in universities
Kilani adds that a network of 52 Focal points was established within the Jordanian academic community (private and public universities), research centers as well as small and medium enterprises concerned by scientific research. Their mission is to disseminate information about European research programs. Each Focal Point is managed by a Liaison Officer that links between researchers and SRTD unit management team.

Kilani explains that Liaison officers were offered training sessions so that they could train researchers working in their institutions. Furthermore, a series of writing proposals courses were organized to the profit of Liaison Officers within the framework of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), considered as the main European tool for Research, Development and Innovation in Europe. Besides, Focal Points were provided with computers and handbooks about EU-funded research programmes. The project management team designed numerous awareness campaigns as well as SRTD presentation sessions in public and private universities.

A convenient environment for start-up businesses
The SRTD supportive activities go beyond building bridges between scientific research and the private sector. The project also aims at helping innovators and supporting new start-up businesses, through capacity building sessions for business incubators staff, awareness campaigns about the importance of innovation in ensuring a sustainable development, as well as by promoting business incubators as reference for new entrepreneurs to develop ideas and serve the interests of Jordanian society.

The incubators’ employees have attended training courses around strategy and action plan, as well as market research. They’ve also participated in international conferences to promote their work.

30 entrepreneurs received start-up grants to develop their innovative ideas within the business incubators. Many ideas were submitted and then evaluated according to certain criteria. 30 research grants were also allocated; a scientific committee examined the submitted proposals and chose 23 researchers for funding. Their projects cover many fields: energy, environment, health, nanotechnology, agriculture and food, as well as ICT.

Two new incubators were established with a budget of €170,000, and became members of the Jordan Innovation Centers (JICs). The first one, dedicated to innovative women, works on promoting women entrepreneurs. The second one, Al-Hassan Industrial Estate of Karak, is specialized in tourism and Dead Sea salt and minerals.

Promoting women entrepreneurs
Chief Executive Officer at Jordan Forum for Business and Professional Women, Rania El-Khatib, stresses on the importance of encouraging women’s leadership. She says that women’s participation in economic life does not exceed 16% in Jordan, which is a low percentage, especially that women constitute 50% of the Jordanian society. El-Khatib says that if we intend to give efficient economy push in Jordan, then half of the society should be involved in the economic life.

The Jordan Forum for Business and Professional Women’s incubator succeeded in creating job opportunities, by implementing around 14 development projects in many fields. El-Khatib assures that each project is capable, after being approved and given counseling and training services, of creating new job opportunities, which helps improve the economy of Jordan.

El-Khatib says that projects are selected by the Jordan Forum for Business and Professional Women according to certain criteria, especially the submission of new and creative ideas. In addition, the candidate must have a strong personality, a sense of leadership, a solid self-confidence as well as a real ambition to success.

Kilani explains that within the framework of its development activities, SRTD is supporting the establishment of a national Intellectual Property Commercialization Office “Al-Hassan Science City” to become the main center for technology transfer activities in Jordan. The aim is to build bridges between scientific research centers and business organizations across the country.

Refer to the project fact sheet: Support to Research and Technological Development & Innovation (Jordan)