DUBAI’S RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

The Crown Prince of Dubai and head of the Dubai Executive Council, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has started an R&D initiative in the emirate. The Dubai R&D programme is built around four pillars: establishing a roadmap and governance model; identifying top R&D objectives; regulating funds and investments, expanding Dubai's R&D spending and maximising private sector engagement.

By providing a framework for R&D and innovation across the emirate, the initiative seeks to help important economic sectors and open up growth potential. The programme also helps Dubai's future strategy to enhance private sector R&D operations, draw in foreign investors, and develop knowledge and innovation-driven responses to regional and global concerns. Health and well-being, environmental technology, smart built infrastructure, and space and enhanced human-machine intelligence are the program's four focuses across the emirate. The use of disruptive technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, robotics, drones, 3D printing, and others will help projects in these areas. Maximizing private sector involvement in R&D is essential to accomplishing Dubai's long-term objectives. Due to their emphasis on R&D, major economies and leading global cities have made significant advancements throughout history. Therefore, Sheikh Hamdan added, "Improving scientific and technological research is essential to fulfilling Dubai's goal for the future economy. Sheikh Hamdan oversaw the creation of the "Dubai Research and Development Council," whose task is to monitor the advancement of the program's goals under the national plan to foster innovation. a special committee will monitor how the program's goals are being carried out. 

Sheikh Hamdan said, "We ordered the creation of a council with representatives from the public, private, and academic sectors, to oversee the management of research and development projects, initiatives, and legislation in the emirate... and ways to support investment in it... and increase local spending on it... and enhance the participation of the private sector in launching and financing them." 

The programme would offer a thorough framework for research, development, and innovation throughout the emirate. It was introduced during a conference at the Dubai Future Foundation. It aims to assist Dubai's future goal of developing knowledge- and innovation-driven responses to regional and global problems as well as boosting the productivity of current industries by providing them with fresh growth opportunities. According to the Dubai Innovation Index, which was created by the Dubai Chamber in partnership with PwC, Dubai led the Arab world and was rated 20th internationally in 2020. The second-largest economy in the Arab world, the UAE, moved up one spot to be ranked 33rd out of 132 nations in the World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index 2021. The nation was ranked third among the 19 countries in Northern Africa and Western Asia and 32nd among the 51 high-income group economies. According to the media office, The programme also aims to control legislation, projects, and initiatives in the R&D sector. Raising domestic spending on these initiatives is part of the agenda. The chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai and the Board of Trustees of the DFF, Sheikh Hamdan, stated that "maximising the private sector's engagement in R&D is important to accomplishing our future goals in Dubai." He emphasised the need of encouraging foreign businesses to perform R&D in the emirate, embrace cutting-edge concepts and techniques, seize possibilities for the future, and concentrate on cutting-edge technology. The adoption of disruptive technologies including artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of Things, blockchain, robotics, drones, 3D printing, and others will help the program's endeavours in these areas. As stated by Sheikh Hamdan, "Improving scientific and technology research is essential to attaining Dubai's vision for the future economy." 

To further its attempts to position the emirate as a major centre for the future economy, Dubai established a higher committee for future technology and the digital economy in July. By making investments in the metaverse and forming alliances to advance Dubai's digital economy, the corporation hopes to contribute to the development of artificial intelligence.

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