Evaluation of Engineering Research in Arab Countries Using a Bibliometric-based Approach

This paper presents the results of an evaluation of the research productivity in general, and the engineering research activities in particular, in the Arab countries compared to a selected number of other countries in the world. This study covers the period 2001-2011 and uses the number of publications and the number of citations as a basis for the evaluation. The study shows that, in terms of research productivity, it is a long way ahead for the Arab countries to compete with some of the countries with relatively small number of residents. Moreover, the results show that using English as the medium of instruction in teaching engineering and sciences, as is usually the case in most Arab countries, does not result in higher research productivity and better communication with the rest of the world. The results show that countries, with relatively small number of residents, using national language as medium of instruction are doing much better than Arab countries in terms of research productivity.