A new golden age?

With eye-catching investments like the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, the construction of the world’s first sustainable city in the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey’s dramatic increases in R&D spending, there are signs of renewed ambition and investment in education, science and innovation across the Islamic world which warrant greater attention.

This positioning paper, launched in June by the Royal Society, profiles some of these advances in science and innovation across the Islamic world, and reviews the barriers to further and faster progress.

The paper also introduces the Atlas of Islamic-World Science and Innovation project which builds in a practical way on the themes discussed in the paper, and which the Royal Society is coordinating in partnership with the Organisation of Islamic Conference and a range of international partners.

Project partners

• The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
• Nature
• The Statistical, Economic and Social Research & Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC)
• The British Council
• The International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
• The Qatar Foundation
• The Islamic Development Bank
• COMSTECH
• The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO)

We also work with national research partners on the production of each case study.