It is not just about how many papers we have published, how many students we have graduated, or how many universities have advanced in rankings. The harder question is: How many Jordanian ideas have turned into products? How many products have turned into companies? And how many companies have emerged from the university and managed to sell something made in Jordan to the world?
Jordan is a country with limited resources, and this is a fact that will not change. We do not have oil in quantities that create a rentier economy, nor huge rivers, nor a local market of hundreds of millions of consumers. Therefore, it is illogical to try to compete with countries that have resources dozens of times greater than ours, or factories that produce on a scale we cannot match.
But we have something else we can compete with: the human being.
We have universities, doctors, engineers, programmers, researchers, and educated youth. The problem is not the absence of minds, but that we have not yet built the system that takes an idea from a researcher's mind and delivers it to the market.
The natural path should be simple: a real problem, then research, then technology, then a prototype, then a product, then a company, then export.
But what often happens is different. Research starts at the university and ends there: research, publication, promotion, then the work is put on the shelf and we start new research.
And here I believe we must change the way of thinking from its foundation.
Jordan does not need to manufacture everything. Nor do I believe we should compete with China or others in industries whose advantage is based on massive volume and cheap production. What we need is to make things that require more mind than materials.
Take, for example, a ton of cement. A large part of its value is raw materials, energy, and transport. Compare it to a small medical device, an electronic sensor, a specialized medicine, or software that controls a factory. The amount of material in these products may be very limited, but their true value lies in knowledge, design, engineering, and intellectual property.
This is the playing field that suits Jordan.
And if we want to start tomorrow, the beginning is not complicated. Put the Jordanian import bill in front of the universities and ask: What are we importing that could be manufactured here?
If we are importing sensors, why shouldn't some types become joint projects between engineering colleges and industry? If we are importing medical devices, why shouldn't the doctor, engineer, and manufacturer sit in one room to develop local alternatives? And if water is one of Jordan's biggest problems, why shouldn't Jordan itself become a hub for developing smart meters, leak detection technologies, and water network management?
We have water scarcity and challenges in agriculture. Instead of looking at the problem as just a burden, why don't we turn it into a field we specialize in? Smart irrigation, moisture sensors, precision agriculture, drought-handling technologies, and water management software.
If a Jordanian product succeeds in Jordan's difficult conditions, there are many countries suffering from similar problems that could be a market for it.
And this leads to the role of the university.
I do not want the university to turn into a factory that produces a million pieces. That is not its job. But I want a place inside the university that can take an idea from paper and turn it into something that can be touched and tested: design, then a prototype, then testing, modification, and certification, leading to the manufacturing of the first batch.
After five years, I don't want to hear from a research center only that it has published 200 scientific papers. I also want to know: How many products came out of it? How many products entered the market? How many companies were established? And how many of them sold outside Jordan?
Even for a PhD, we must look at it in a different way. A student studying water, for example, why should their ultimate goal be to defend the thesis, get the degree, and end the story?
Give them a real problem from a water company, a factory, or a municipality. Tell them: Can you reduce the cost of this process by 15 percent? Can you reduce waste? Can you develop a cheaper or more accurate device?
If they succeed, the journey does not stop at the defense. The thesis becomes a patent or technology, then a prototype, then a product looking for an investor, and perhaps after that, a company.
Then the PhD thesis becomes an economic asset, not just another volume in the university library.
But here we reach the hardest problem: the researcher may reach a prototype, but the road between the prototype and the product sold in the market is still long. And this is precisely the link we must know how to build.
