Local Saudi businessmen and entrepreneurs were urged to shift their traditional investments to shore up scientific researches and academic organizations. The call came here during the first introductory meeting of the Scientific Endowment at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) here on Monday. Dr. Usama Sadeq Al Tayeb, President of King Abdul Aziz University (KAAU), Dr. Abdullah Omar Bafail, Vice President of University of Islamic Studies and Dr. Mazen Mohammad Batarji, deputy head of the administration board of JCCI, attended the session. “The amount spent on scientific and military researches in Israel is twice the total amount used for the same purpose by all Arab states collectively,” Al-Tayeb said. He said the KAAU was founded by private financial support of Jeddah entrepreneurs some 40 years ago. “This is a very good example of the community support to scientific organizations,” Al-Tayeb added. Dr. Essam Kawthar, executive manager of the committee, presented a comprehensive study on the practice of scientific funds and support in American and European countries. “Harvard University of Massachusetts spent a massive 28,910 dollars on scientific endowments in 2006. In Britain, Cambridge University received a sum of 660 million pounds sterling of subsidies to be allocated for scientific researches in 2002. University of Toronto also has a scientific endowment estimated at 1,820 million Canadian dollars. The same is true for Japan where the endowments of Kyoto University reached around 2.1 billion dollars,” Kawthar said. Not only private sector but also government bodies have been ever supportive of scientific organizations and researches in these countries, he said. Kawthar stressed that many investors in the Kingdom and other Arab countries wrongly believe that such kind of investments are not profitable. “I can assure you that it is more lucrative than any traditional business,” he said, citing the example of Harvard University where the assets of $349 billion of 11,000 endowments in June 2007 could attain a 23 percent revenue. He said scientific (endowments) donations contribute towards community services like student financial support, payment to educationalists and maintenance of general budget of the university. Kawthar also highlighted edicts by eminent Saudi scholars urging a special part of the Zakah funds to be allocated for scientific endowments. __
