What is Gulf Region

This chapter employs both the descriptive and comparative approaches and uses the definition of national systems of innovation used in the literature to examine the characteristics (strength and weakness) and implications of the national systems of innovation in the Arab countries. This paper examines three hypotheses, that the national systems of innovation exist but characterized by serious weaknesses in the Arab countries compared with other world countries, that the level of income has inconclusive effect in the performance of the national innovation systems in the Arab countries and that the poor Arab national systems of innovation has serious implications in the Arab countries. This paper explains two common characteristics of the national systems of innovation concerning poor subsystems of education, S&T, R&D, and ICT institutions in the Arab countries and concentration of R&D activities within public and universities sectors and small contribution of the private sector in R&D activities.