Mohammad Obaidat

QUEEN RANIA CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP

STEMM DISCIPLINES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

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Contents STEMM in education ..................................................................................................................................... 2

STEMM in labor Market ................................................................................................................................ 2

Engineering disciplines .............................................................................................................................. 2

Information and Communication Technology Disciplines ........................................................................ 3

National entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy ........................................................................................ 3

Entrepreneurship ecosystem status ............................................................................................................. 6

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STEMM in education There are 25 universities in Jordan in which they offer one or more topic related to STEMM, 10 out of the

25 are public universities (Government) and 15 are privately owned universities. In those universities

there are 4213 academic staff member, of which 3196 are employed at the public universities which is

more than 75% of the academic staff employed in Jordanian universities.

The percentage of students enrolled in STEMM disciplines in those 25 universities is 44% in 2013, and the

percentage of graduates from STEMM is more than 38% in the same year, based on that in the year 2013

statistics 18,371 graduated and entered the market.

The 2013 statistics also highlighted that those universities accepted 31028 students in STEMM disciplines,

added to that 110913 who were already enrolled in these universities in the same disciplines, more than

80% of those students are enrolled in public universities in Jordan, which leaves less than 20% for the

private universities. Also these statistics showed that more than 50% of those students were centralized

in two cities (Amman and Irbid) as those cities hosting 14 out of the totally 25 universities, with 2

universities with STEMM related disciplines focus, The Jordan University for Science and Technology and

the Princess Sumaya University for Technology.

STEMM in labor Market Jordan faces a big unemployment challenges with rates between 12% and 15%, and more than 87% of the

labor in the market are hired employees which leaves less than 13% as business owners, entrepreneurs

and freelancers.

Engineering disciplines When giving a glance to the market status when it comes to the STEMM disciplines, the level of

unemployment is getting higher due to the large number of graduates and the small market. With regards

to the engineering disciplines there are more than 120 thousands registered engineer in Jordan, which is

considered a high ration compared to the population. The percentage of unemployment in the

engineering disciplines is 17%, with more than 45 thousands engineering working abroad.

The Jordan Engineering Association announced that some engineering disciplines are saturated in the

market and some others are stagnant. The most wanted engineering disciplines are:

1. Mechanical Engineering

2. Electrical Engineering

3. Chemical Engineering

4. Mining Engineering

5. Architecture Engineering

The saturated disciplines are:

1. Autotronics Engineering

2. Industrial Engineering

3. Transportation Engineering

And the stagnant disciplines are:

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1. Production and Machinery Engineering

2. Production Material Engineering

3. Aviation Engineering

4. Nuclear Engineering

The reason those disciplines are saturated and stagnant is accounted for the fact they we don’t have

strong production or engineering industry in the market, according to the experts in this industry, and

there is a large undocumented number of engineers who migrated to work in ICT related profession such

as programming, product development or project management as there is a better demand on such job

opportunities.

Information and Communication Technology Disciplines The information and communication technology sector (ICT) on the other hand is the main active sector

when it comes to supporting entrepreneurship, the sector has a strong potential with 14% contribution

to the GDP, yet the sector is facing a strong brain drain due to limited opportunities in Jordan, as there

are 600 thousands Jordanian working abroad from different STEMM disciplines.

The main stockholders in this sector have been building several strategies and initiatives. The main

initiatives are:

1. E-Gove: with main focus on building more efficient government, the E-Gov program cooperated

with a startup on bringing e-payments to the government sector, and focused in one aspect on

facilitating the registration processes for the new ventures. Yet, the program has been there over

10 years now with limited progress due to cultural and financial challenges.

2. The ICT national initiative (Reach) in 2005, focused on:

a. Promotion of regulatory bodies

b. HR development

c. Government support

d. Capital and finance

e. Infrastructure development

This initiative and by 2006 considered to be a successful strategy as it yielded the ICT sector to be the

fastest growing sector in Jordan, with an average of 50% growth per year during the period from 1999-

2006 which is the initiative’s period, these results were supported by the private sector support which

increased internet connectivity, as it risen to 11.4% which is considered to be one of the highest in

developing countries.

3. Reach Initiatives (2007 – 2012) and (2013 – 2017)

a. Improve the business and investment environment

b. Increase the FDI through supporting innovation centers

c. Maintain and develop the infrastructure to support innovation

National entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy Jordan national innovation and entrepreneurship have been lacking national policies and strategies which

lead struggle in developing the innovation based economy in Jordan for the past few years.

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The reasons behind not having strong strategies and policies in Jordan, was accounted for the few reasons

by the ministry of planning and international cooperation, these reasons are:

Legislative factors

Human and institutional factors

Financial factors.

The Jordan national innovation strategy (2013 – 2017), have been put in place, as a guide to enforce the

movement towards the innovation based economy and considered the following:

Education

Employment

Energy

Environment

Financial Services

Fiscal discipline

Health care

Higher education

ICT

Infrastructure

Investment

development and

Inclusion

Postal services

Poverty

Scientific research

Social welfare

Transportation

Vocational training

Water

The main services required to build a strong entrepreneurship base are:

There are entities covering each of the components of the ecosystem, yet the main challenges are

considered to be:

1. Synergy and cooperation between the organizations

2. Alignment between the policy makers and the organizations

3. Focus on the R&D priorities and focus areas.

Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

Policy

Funding

R&DCapacity Building

Value added

services

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The stages to bring STEMM innovation into enterprises goes through several phases, reflected on the

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) meter of 9 levels, goes as follow:

1. TRLs (1 – 4): Basic Technology. University research and innovation labs, usually funded by

government funds and/or private funds

2. TRLs (5 – 7): Prototypes and technology demonstration. Incubators, accelerators, corporate labs,

usually funded by private funds (Angel Investors, Grants)

3. TRLs (8 – 9): Technology ready for market, usually funded by (Venture capitals, Private equity)

The current reality in Jordan goes as follow:

Component TRLs (1 – 4) involved entities

TRLs (5 – 7) involved entities

TRLs (8 – 9) involved entities

Policy

Higher Council for Science and Technology, Ministry of Higher Education, Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, Higher Education Accreditation and Quality Assurance Commission

Higher Council for Science and Technology, Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology

Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology

Funding

Ministry of Finance, Scientific Research Fund, Applied Scientific Research Fund, King Abdullah Fund for Development, USAID Jordan Competitiveness Program, ERDB

National Fund for Enterprise Support, Industrial Research and Development Fund, Oasis500

Silicon Badiya,

Research and Development

Royal Scientific Center, National Center for Research and Development

Royal Scientific Society, National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension

Capacity Building

Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, Injaz, Petra University Innovation Center, King Abdullah Fund for Development.

Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, Business Development Center

Value Added Services

Incubation

Jordan University for Science and Technology Tech Incubator, Petra University Innovation Center, Philadelphia

iPark, Oasis500, Al-Urdonia Lil-Ebdaa

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University Innovation Center, University of Jordan Innovation Center, Academic Entrepreneurship Center of Excellence Development Unite

Coaching and Mentorship

Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship

iPark, Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, Mowgli

Endeavor

Co-working Spaces

Zain Innovation Center, Tank by Umniah, Big by Orange

Zain Innovation Center, Tank by Umniah, Big by Orange

Consulting JEDCO, iPark, Intaj JEDCO, iPark, Endeavor, Intaj

Intellectual Property

Ipco, National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension, Technology Transfer Offices

Ipco, Technology Transfer Offices

Entrepreneurship ecosystem status From the above listing of the organizations, there are many organizations working in the early stage of

development, and limited number of organizations working on the late stages of development of

technology and introduction to market. On the other hand, despite the large number of organizations in

the early stages, the lack of coordination and synergy they are not achieving much.

1. Funding: The government actual spending on R&D in 2014 was 0.62% of the GDP, which is higher

than the spending on 2008 (0.43%), yet it very low. The funding given from the government mostly

is allocated to the universities through the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of

Finance. For example, the total spending on Energy research in 2014 was 2.6 million Jordanian

Dinar, even though the energy sector is considered to be the most challenging sector for the

Jordanian economy.

2. Policy: There are several innovation and R&D strategies were put in place, but when

communicating with the stakeholders of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, the response was that

they never heard of these strategies, or the strategies weren’t incorporated with their goals and

objectives.

3. Capacity building: There are a few organizations focusing on building the capacity of the early

stage entrepreneurs in Jordan and the students, yet those program are either targeting in

particular general business knowledge trainings, or financial planning training. There is a lack of

product development programs, innovation trainings, and customer development programs,

which are necessary for the entrepreneurs in order to validate their businesses. For the later

stages entrepreneurs, they are not special growth or development training or capacity building

programs provided.

4. Support services:

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a. Incubation: The incubators available today in the ecosystem are focusing on the early lab

stage and the technology testing and demonstration stage, those incubators are limited

and not spread across the country, which makes them hard to access to several

entrepreneurs in Jordanian cities far from the main cities (Amman and Irbid). On the other

hand, the incubators already in place today, are offering specific support and services for

entrepreneurs in ICT industry, and the they can’t offer most of the time the support

needed for other STEMM industries. For the Universities incubators, a main challenge

they are facing is funding, and universities policies which forces them to either look for

personal funding or at certain times drop-off the projects due to lack of funding.

b. Coaching and Mentorship: Organizations providing mentorship and coaching are limited

to the entrepreneurs enrolled in their programs, such as the Queen Rania National

Entrepreneurship Competition which provides mentorship for applicants who bases the

early stage of mentorship. The biggest challenge in providing mentorship and coaching

for the STEMM disciplines is finding the right experts and finding willing experts to

volunteer for some time, as these services are usually offered on voluntary bases.

c. Co-working spaces: The free co-working spaces for entrepreneurs in Jordan are offered

mainly by corporates such as the Telecom operators, those co-working spaces are

considerably good spaces for working and conducting meetings for early stage

entrepreneurs, the challenge is that they started diverting their mission towards events

and workshops spaces, which is affecting the original purpose of having a space where

entrepreneurs can conduct business.

d. Consulting: Culture of consulting and seeking advice for entrepreneurs here is not

supported due to several factors, yet there are few organizations who try offering

consultancy at cheap price and sometimes at no cost, those organizations though are not

being positioned as the place to go to seek advice.

e. Intellectual property: Intellectual property regulations and policies in Jordan are

considerably strong amongst the developing countries, yet sometimes the STEMM

innovators and entrepreneurs find it challenging to apply for patents due to the high

costs, and there is a very limited funding for applied research and patenting, and it’s

usually hard to access by entrepreneurs, for example the funding provided by the

government to the universities and the Scientific Research Fund is restricted to the

academic staff of the universities or the PhD holders and not accessible by the innovators

otherwise.

5. Research and Development: The main national R&D bodies are the Royal Scientific Society, the

National Center for Research and Development, and the National Center for Agricultural Research

and Extension, plus the Universities labs. The feedback generated from the entrepreneurs is that

those institutions are hard to get into unless you are a registered researcher, for the universities

it is usually available for professors and students of these universities can apply for access request

to access and use the labs, but for the community they can’t access the labs or research facilities

of the universities.