Final Reflection

It has been a whole semester that I was working on my research. I
Remember that I was completely lost when Professor Ghechi asked us to
choose an interesting topic related to university. I thought a lot about a
subject that could be useful for everyone, something different that reaches
a high level of reflection. So, I remembered a day when I was traveling
to Marrakech in train. As you know, when you have many hours to fill,
you talk a lot. My friend and I, were talking about Morocco’s
development and why are we so far away from cavitations like Europe or
United States of America. My friend told me that improving sport in
Universities could be a great field for our development. I told her that
before thinking of sports, we should think about how to decrease the
gap between us and the North by improving our economy and our
competition skills. Scientific research would be the best field to improve
because it covers all the fields that are deficient. So, when Professor
Ghechi asked us to find a controversial topic, I jumped at the chance.
It would be a great opportunity for me first, to know more about the
subject, but also to give an interesting project to all my classmates about
a topic that is quiet unusual.

When I started my research, I was completely lost because the topic was
too large. Obviously, I began by searching books on the library, but only
one was very useful because of the old dated journals that they have.
I also tried to get articles from Jstore or EBSCO Host databases, but no
results either. So I decided to talk directly to qualified persons. I asked
Mrs. Farida Tazi about research centers in AUI, and she led me to
Mr. Ahmed Driouchi, who conducts research in the Institute of Economic
Analysis and Prospective Studies, based in AUI´s building 1. I was so
desperate when he told me that he was too busy to give me a meeting.
But as usual, I never give up. I tried again many times, till he accepted
to meet me in his office for half an hour. He was very cooperative
and gave me many advices in addition to the interview. I followed my
research by searching relevant sources online an I found many interesting
articles. Magazines and Newspaper were also full of useful data.

Once I collected everything, I had to organize myself and make a
logical outline. I tried many ones, but the one I found the most interesting
was to use a time line in order to make a logical sense of evolution. I
began with the context of scientific research from late 90´s to 2010. Then
I focused on today’s situation and plans for the future. Frankly, I learned
so many things about this issue. I admit that I had so many wrong biases.
But I learned that even if we are an underdeveloped country, our leaders
are doing many efforts and making many reforms to make our system
of education better, because they realized that scientific research in
morocco is so essential to our evolution, and especially to our close
opening to external competition with strong economic countries such as
United States and European Union, which could be critical for our actual
protectionist economy if we are not well prepared.

Special thanks

Special thanks to:
- Professor Ghechi who advised me and supported me for my study.

- Mr. Ahmed Driouchi who gave me a little bit of his time for the interview.

- Students who answered my Survey.

Reference List

Websites:
- www.aau.edu
- www.scidev.net
- www.ieaps.ma
- www.magharebia.com
Books:
- Rachidi, B; Fahli, A. (2006). Actes de la Rencontre Nationale sur la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique. Rabat.
- Centre national de coordination et de planification de la recherche scientifique et technique. (1995). Moroccan Science Abstracts.
- Université Hassan II. (2001). Les Cahiers de la Recherche. Casablanca.
- Académie Hassan II des Sciences et Techniques. (2008). Les Jeunes et la science : conférences données dans le cadre des journées; 19 30 novembre 2007. Rabat.
- Centre national de coordination et de planification de la recherche scientifique et technique. (1995). Répertoire des unités de recherche. Rabat.
Newspapers:
- Alami, S. L´économiste: Le Maroc parie sur les nanosciences. Casablanca, 2007.
- Chakir, R. Le Matin : Nanotechnologies, Grands Espoirs, Petites Réalisations. Casablanca, 2009.
Magazine :
- Boukhari, K. Telquel: Recherche, un ouvrage, une alternative. Casablanca, 2010.

Journal :
- Kettani, Driss; El Mahidi, Asmae. Fez e-Government Project: An Initiative Transforming Scientific Research to Value in Morocco. Ifrane, Al Akhawayn University: Electronic Journal of e-Government, 2009.

Conclusions

To conclude, Morocco has evolved a lot in term of scientific
research. Moroccan leaders understood the huge importance of this
matter, and made effective actions and reforms over more than ten years.
Obviously, many lacks still exist, but many efforts are made over
both public and private sectors. Today, Universities are allowed to make
their proper research according to their own policies. The government
works in parallel to link universities with private sector and companies as
potential investors. Moreover, Morocco has a particular vision in two
ways: In one hand attract external investors through projects as
“Programme Emergence”, and in a second hand develop local projects.
Morocco is planning its future through technological innovations and
local development. However, few unanswered questions are still
remaining. If political leaders are aware, what about students? Because
some of them represent future generation of leaders, I thought that it was
essential to know about this issue. Indeed, I conducted a survey with 30
AUI students. The results are the following:






These results reveal that students, who have in addition, research centers
at disposition (I mean Al Akhawayn University), do not really care about
scientific research in Morocco and do not have necessary knowledge
about this issue. In this study that I have conducted during a whole
academic semester, I found many solutions possible. First, make students
sensitive about scientific research and its opportunities, then encourage
them to pursue their studies through PhD promotion. For me, the best
key to promote scientific research is to develop it at the source, which
means university. Of course, many of them have already done a good
job by creating centers of development and making partnerships with
many institutions like AUI, but there are so many things to do and the
most important in my mind would be the promotion of the field.

The futur of Morocco´s scientific research

The infrastructures seem to be set up, but are there any real projects?
Through my study, I observed that Morocco is planning the future of its
scientific research over many plans. One of the most interesting could be
“Le Programme Emergence”. Off shoring, Cars, Aeronautic, Electronics,
but also Agro alimentary, Sea products, Textile and Craft Industry
constitute the development of eight main fields that are considered to be
the most essential for Morocco. Another interesting project could be “Le
Plan d´ Urgence pour l´ Education et la formation” which has as a main
objective to reduce poverty through scientific research. Also, Morocco
is looking up for 2020 with a program of new technologies development
through MASCIR (Moroccan Association for Scientific and Innovative
Research) in cooperation with the CDG, MEDZ, and universities such as
AUI. 564 Million dirham have been invested in this project, in order to
develop nanotechnologies and biotechnologies.

My results 2010

Today, scientific research in Morocco has definitely changed.
Obviously, there are still many lacks, but the difference is that this
domain is much more organized and is following a guideline.
First of all, a strategy has been implemented between 2006 and 2010 by
“Le Ministere de l´Education Nationale, de l´Enseignement Supérieur, de
la formation des cadres” through three main ways: upgrade of the
national research system policy; reinforcement of human ressources and
financial management of research activities. These following axis of
improvement are organized through four main structures : CNRST
(Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique),
R&D Maroc (Moroccan Association for Research and Development),
ANPME (Agence Nationale pour la Promotion de la Petite et Moyenne
Entreprise) and of course public Universities (Ex: Université Hassan II
des Sciences et Techniques). Why these structures? To attract external
investments, create enough Infrastructures for scientific research, link the
private companies with the Universities that are making these researches,
and have a weight over Moroccan government. The following table
shows how these infrastructures work together.




This table below shows the strategies that these different institutions are
making in in order to achieve their goals, inspired by the interview given
by Ahmed Driouchi (Board of the Institute of Economic Analysis and
Prospective Studies, at AUI).

My results 2000 - 2009

Once I collected all this data, I was first able to make many
interesting observations over the evolution of scientific research till
today. The following tables shows us the numbers of people who work in
scientific research in Morocco.








In the last ten years, scientific research finances in Morocco evolved a
lot. It was first the international cooperation’s who were taken it in
charge, like in 1972 when French researchers (Ex: Jean Francois Troin)
came to Morocco in order to study and work on Morocco’s map.
The table8 below taken from the OMPIC (Office Marocain de la Proprieté
Intellectuelle et Commerciale) shows us an interesting point about the
bad evolution of patents.




Indeed, we observe that 2/3 of patents are not Moroccans. So, the patents
which are essential to keep the legal right of an invention are also
deficient. Many other lacks are noticed, as a decrease in scientific
production, investments are not well distributed, bad teamwork between
research units, no motivation or the age of the researchers that keeps
increasing. Moreover, the absence of research evaluation is a strong
barrier to the quality of research improvement. Aware of their important
quantity of deficits, Morocco started many reforms toward 2010.