4	The Present State and Outlook for Research and Scholarship in the Third World
		In directing that the new al Al-Bayt University be established in Jordan, King Hussein opened with a reminder that, "Human knowledge in this age has flourished on all levels and expanded in every direction", and he saw the Arab and Islamic Worlds engaged in a struggle to keep abreast of this explosion of knowledge. Truman's Point Four declaration in 1948 gave classic expression to the hope that science and technology could remove poverty and destitution everywhere if it could be properly put to use. From simplistic first expectations that knowledge that had made the rich countries rich could be readily transferred to lift the poor countries, awareness has grown that the capacity to utilise modern scientific and technical knowledge depends on the building of professional communities and institutions in the poorer countries. Simply to keep abreast of the new knowledge that sprouts in a thousand specialties poses formidable demands. And since creative application of available knowledge is not much different from the creation of new knowledge, the poorer countries seek to be not merely consumers of discoveries but contributors themselves.
		We have summarised above the Harvard Report's dispiriting findings on the state of research and scholarship in the Third World at the beginning of the 1980s. In 1993, UNESCO issued a World Science Report, which continues to show enormous disparities between the rich and poor countries in expenditures on research and development, in numbers of working scientists and technologists, and in their productivity in scientific research. Using the same data base for scientific publications that was cited in the Harvard Report, the UNESCO study found the Middle and Near East (excluding Israel) contributing only 0.6% of world scientific publications in 1991; North Africa contributing 0.4%; and Africa South of the Sahara 0.9%. India, the champion of the developing countries on this score, had 2.0%. Taken all together these areas produced less than Canada's 4.4%. In comparison with 1983, the Near and Middle East and North Africa had improved somewhat, Africa held steady and India declined somewhat; but these were small movements from low positions.
		The UNESCO report shows increasing numbers of trained scientists and technologists in the developing countries, but also the familiarly low ratios of research and development expenditures to Gross Domestic Product. The chapter on South Asia unfortunately lacks instructive detail and that on the Arab States, while full of data, does not address scientific productivity. The chapter on Africa, by Thomas Odhiambo, for many years director of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya contains a poignant regret over loss of momentum and neglect of the proper functions of universities :
		"By 1980 there were well over 400 research institutions in Africa. But they had not maintained the momentum that was evident in the 1950s and 1960s; nor had they provided the high-quality education and relevant research that was desperately required to clear the main blocks to economic and social development. Indeed, the notion Of a 'development university' did not establish itself at all in Africa. The attempts by the African university community 'to play a direct, short-term interventionist role in national development beyond providing a high-level education and professional training, 'to justify its budget and special status in society'were largely unsuccessful. Rather than the needed partnership between government and university, conflict was generated between the two, as a result of 'idealistic notions of income redistribution and sharing of political power'." [p.94. The quotations are from an ICIPE publication on scientific institution -building in Africa.]
		The constraints on research in the Third World from the lack of a supporting environment and intellectual freedom have persisted. Whether they are as severe as they were ten years ago is not an easy assessment. There are certainly countries like Algeria and Sudan where physical conditions and intellectual freedom have notoriously deteriorated, with outspoken intellectuals assassinated, and professors afraid to go to their universities. These are Muslim countries and two of the most disturbing examples where the rise of militant and intolerant Islam has worsened the conditions for intellectual work that Mohamed Arkoun was already deploring in the early 1980s. Even in Muslim countries where less intolerant forms of Islam prevail, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, the constraints on intellectual freedom remain serious, inhibiting the kind of work that is "widening intellectual perspectives, liberating society from its myths and illusions, or conceptualising development issues". The rise of assertive insistence on cultural differences has been very widespread and not confined to Islam, as recent polemics over universal human rights have shown. But the constraints and intolerance that have appeared in Islamic countries are certainly among the more serious, and there is reason to fear that Muslim intellectual creativity may be particularly crippled by them.
		Looking at the prospects for the next quarter-century requires reflection on broad changes that have been occurring in the world beyond the universities and research institutions. We venture onto this broad stage in the next section of this Report and hope that our vision of the future of research and scholarship will become clearer thereafter. But at this stage it seems safe to anticipate no slowing of the world's pace of scientific discovery and advance. With the increasing sophistication and expense of scientific investigation the advantages of the rich leaders seem unlikely to diminish.

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