The American University in Sharjah, announced a new economic free zone, the AUS Research, Technology and Innovation (RTI) Park. The first phase of RTI Park, is set to open by 2019 on a 20m-sq-ft area, which will accommodate companies working in the technology, transport, environment and energy sectors. Over the past years Sharjah has developed into an Educational Hub with an increased number of universities and a magnet to a large population of Arab students.
The RTI Park targets six specific research areas identified for development in Sharjah: water technology, industrial design and architecture, transportation and logistics, energy, environment and digitisation. The Park comes in line with the recently launched Sharjah Entrepreneurship Centre at AUS. Known as Sheraa which is backed by the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) aiming to connect higher education with business entities to encourage the development of local enterprises.
The R&D gap in the MENA tertiary has been growing over the past years, Arab countries spend an average of 0.3% of their GDP on R&D, compared to the global average of 2.1%, according to figures from the MIT Technology Review. Such an investment can yield a lacking link between research performed at educational institutions and market requirements.
