The Jordan Strategies Forum issued a policy brief entitled “Protecting property rights: the entrance to promoting creativity and innovation”, on the occasion of the United Nations World Science Day for Peace and Development, which falls on November 10 of each year.
In the summary, the forum stressed the importance of the role of the creative and innovative Jordanian human resource as the most important economic resource for achieving development. Managing it, addressing its imbalances, and translating it from absolute quantitative growth to high levels of qualitative well-being that can only be done by the creative and innovative human resource.
In this context, the Forum stressed the need to protect the ideas of innovators and to provide all necessary conditions to expand their knowledge exchange channels.
In order to measure the extent to which countries are able to preserve property rights, the forum highlighted Jordan’s position in the property rights index issued by the Property Rights Alliance Foundation in 2022, where the index measures the performance of 129 countries with a score of 0-10, within three main axes that fall Below it are 11 sub-indicators.
According to the forum, the legal and political environment axis measures the level of judicial independence, the rule of law, the stability of political conditions, and the fight against corruption.
As for the tangible property rights axis, it measures the level of protection of private tangible property, the ease of registering ownership, and the ease of obtaining financing, and for the intellectual property rights axis, it measures the level of intellectual property protection, patent protection, trademark protection, and copyright protection.
According to the forum, with regard to the performance of the best and weakest countries on the index, Finland was the country with the best performance with a total score of 8.17/10, while Venezuela was the weakest performing country with a total score of 1.77/10. As for the Arab countries, the UAE was the country with the lowest performance. The best performance, and ranked 129/22 at the global level, with a total score of 6.79/10. As for the Arab country with the weakest performance, Yemen ranked last at the level of Arab countries, and ranked 128/129 at the global level, where it got An overall score of 2.25/10.
With regard to Jordan’s performance, its performance was somewhat good, as it obtained an overall score of 5.72/10, ranked sixth in the Arab world (out of 14 Arab countries) and ranked 43 out of 129 countries at the global level. The forum also indicated that although Jordan has achieved a fairly good performance on the property rights index for 2022, its performance has fallen from what it was in previous years to achieve its lowest score this year, compared to the last decade.
In a related context, the forum reviewed Jordan’s performance in the three main axes of the index, with the aim of identifying shortcomings and working to improve them.
According to the forum, with regard to the legal and political environment axis, Jordan’s position was average, with a score of 5.5/10, ranked 6/14 at the level of Arab countries and ranked 48/129 at the global level.
With regard to Jordan’s performance in the sub-indicators included within this axis, Jordan’s performance in the independence of the judiciary index was the best, with a score of 6.91/10. As for the indicators whose scores were less than the total score for the axis, Jordan scored a score of 5.43/10. in the rule of law index, and a score of 5.14/10 in the anti-corruption index.
The Forum clarified that although the stability of political conditions index is the weakest sub-indicator because it is mainly related to the surrounding political conditions in Jordan, which are exceptional circumstances that are difficult to control, Jordan has managed to achieve a score of 4.54/10 on this indicator. Accordingly, the Forum indicated the need for all concerned to intensify their efforts in combating corruption and imposing the rule of law.
According to the forum, with regard to material property rights, Jordan scored 6.05/10, ranked 6/14 at the level of Arab countries, and ranked 34/129 at the global level. With regard to Jordan’s performance on the sub-indicators of this axis, Jordan’s performance was the best in the protection of private tangible property index, with a score of 6.69/10.
As for Jordan’s performance on the index of ease of access to finance, Jordan scored a score of 6.12/10. As for the index of ease of registering property, it was the sub-indicator that scored less than the total score for the axis, where Jordan got a score of 5.34/10 . To improve Jordan’s performance in this axis, the forum pointed out the need for all concerned to simplify the procedures related to property registration.
In the axis of intellectual property rights, the forum indicated that Jordan has achieved a score of 5.60/10. As for Jordan’s rank in this axis, it ranked 4/14 at the level of Arab countries, and ranked 48/129 at the global level. With regard to Jordan’s performance in the sub-indicators on this axis, the Forum indicated that Jordan’s performance was the best in the intellectual property protection index, with a score of 6.43/10. As for the patent protection index, Jordan scored a score of 5.92/10. As for the indicators Jordan received a score of 5.55/10 in the copyright protection index, and a score of 4.50/10 in the trademark protection index. In order to improve Jordan’s performance in this axis, the Forum stressed the need to improve the means to protect trademarks and copyrights as well.
In the context of the International Science Day for Peace and Development, the Forum stressed the importance of research and development because of its positive repercussions for raising the innovative capabilities of countries and their levels of development. Based on the Global Competitiveness Index report issued by the World Economic Forum in 2019, which includes a wide range of indicators, the Jordan Strategy Forum reviewed the indicator of the ratio of expenditure on research and development to GDP. Accordingly, it was found that Jordan was one of the countries that spent the least on research and development when compared to a group of different countries in relation to its GDP, with Jordan’s percentage of only 0.3%.
According to data issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the forum indicated that the total number of patents in Jordan reached 74 in 2021, with local patents accounting for 14 percent of them, while foreign patents accounted for 86 percent of the total patents. In this context, the forum stated that the reason behind the low number of local patents compared to foreign patents registered in Jordan is only a result of the modest spending on research and development relative to the gross domestic product.
In the context of the importance of investing in scientific research, the Forum referred to the Regulation on Investment in Industrial Research and Development issued by the European Commission in 2021, which aims to monitor the volume of spending on research and development for the largest 2500 companies around the world.
Based on this data, the Forum showed that the top 10 companies in terms of R&D spending, spent a total of €65.1 billion on R&D, with net sales of €820.6 billion as well. He pointed out that the total number of workers in these ten companies has reached 2.35 million.
The Jordan Strategy Forum also highlighted a group of patents that were registered as intellectual property rights in Jordanian universities, emphasizing the importance of the role of the Jordanian human resource in research and development activities.
Accordingly, the forum referred to four patents at the University of Jordan, which are “a method for producing zeols in a pure form from kaolin ores”, “the healing hand”, and “the elliptical dental implant retainer”, in addition to “a device for holding and rotating tubes”, and at Mutah University, The forum referred to two patents in “a project for research and development of anti-bacterials and anti-cancer,” and at the German Jordanian University, the forum referred to a patent in “wireless transmission systems for space modulation technology,” while at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, the forum referred to a patent on “growth.” Quick and easy seeding based on nanoparticles.
In this context, the Jordanian Strategy Forum recommended all stakeholders and policy makers to provide all necessary means to foster creativity and innovation, in addition to the need to enhance their effective and joint communication with universities through the exchange of visits constantly to overcome the challenges faced by the scientific community. As well as networking with innovation centers, documenting their achievements and spreading awareness about them.
In light of the global trend towards investment in scientific research, the forum recommended that all concerned work to increase the volume of investment in research and development activities, particularly by the private sector, because of its critical importance in opening future prospects.