National Strategy for Advanced Innovation

National Strategy for Advanced Innovation

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New Phase

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Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 06

National Innovation Strategy 2014 ..................................................................... 08

The UAE Centennial 2071 ........................................................................................ 14

National Strategy for Advanced Innovation .................................................. 18

National Strategy for Advanced Innovation Framework ........................ 21

A Mindset that Encourages Experimentation and Testing ..................... 22

Global Influencers ....................................................................................................................... 24

Human-centric Purposes ....................................................................................................... 26

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IntroductionIn 2017, the UAE government announced the UAE Centennial 2071 that aims to make the UAE the world's leading nation, and for the country to become an open lab for innovation and a global platform for entrepreneurship. The world today is undergoing rapid changes as the impact of scientific and technological development continues to disrupt almost every sector, affecting society both directly and indirectly. Hence, many questions arise about the impact of these rapid changes on people’s life in the future, and about the innovations, experiments and solutions required to adapt to these changes.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation marks a new phase in the UAE’s innovation journey, and serves as a framework that focuses on the human as the ultimate purpose for collaboration across all sectors. This strategy builds on the National Innovation Strategy (NIS) launched in 2014. It aims to enable individuals and institutions to identify the opportunities and challenges in the UAE’s journey towards achieving the Centennial 2071, and to transform the country into a world leader in science, technology, and innovation.


National Strategy for Advanced Innovation8

National Innovation Strategy 2014

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The UAE has also launched several science and technology projects in the various innovation related sectors and focused on strengthening the country’s ICT infrastructure, in addition to the establishment of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund, Mohammed Bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation, the International Center for Patent Registration, and the UAE Center for Future Readiness.

Developing innovation capabilities in government has also been a key focus area. Examples include the creation of the Chief Innovation Officer position, the enhancement of innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities in schools and universities nationwide, and the introduction of long-term visas for scientists, researchers and innovators from across the world.

In 2014, the UAE government announced the National Innovation Strategy (NIS) structured around three key pillars: An Innovation-Enabling Environment, Innovation Champions, and seven national Innovation Priority Sectors.

Since then, the government has launched 120 initiatives in 9 key areas, in addition to several legislations and strategies approved by the Cabinet in order to enhance the innovation environment. These include the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, the UAE Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence and the National Advanced Science Agenda.

As a result of these efforts, the UAE ranked first among Arab countries in the Global Innovation Index, while federal government entities achieved advanced rankings in the Government Innovation Readiness Survey.

National Innovation Strategy 2014


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National Innovation Strategy Framework 2014

Innovation Priority Sectors

Innovation Champions

An Innovation-Enabling Environment

Innovation RegulatoryFramework

Enabling Services

TechnologyInfractructure

Investmentsand Incevtives

Innovative Government

Innovative Companies and

Institutions

InnovativeIndividuals

13National Strategy for Advanced Innovation


The UAECentennial2071

The UAE Centennial 2071

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The World's Leading Education

The World's Leading Economy

Includes equipping students with 22nd century skills, adopting advanced approach to teaching, and providing the world's first class higher and continuing education

Includes developing professional future talents, world-leading economic sectors, an advanced economic environment, and ensuring sustainable development for future generations

The World's Happiest Society

The World's Leading Government

Characterized by a deeply ingrained national identity, cohesion and tolerance, a long, active and healthy lifestyle, living in the world's most livable cities

Aiming to achieve the higher purpose and empower individuals, in addition to employing technology to provide future government services, develop proactive policies and legislation, and take high quality decisions

The UAE Centennial 2071


Launched in 2017, the UAE Centennial 2071 aims to nurture a future generation equipped with the highest levels of education, professionalism, and moral values. Its goal is to ensure continuity, provide a happy and better life for future generations, and elevate the UAE’s standing to be the world's leading nation. The UAE Centennial is based on four main pillars.


National Strategy for Advanced InnovationNational

Strategy for Advanced Innovation

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The UAE has come a long way in laying the necessary foundations for innovation driven by the National Innovation Strategy, and the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation comes as a continuation that builds on this foundation to help the UAE become the world's leading nation by 2071.

The UAE Centennial 2071 refocuses the role of government on achieving the higher purpose and empowering people, and it lays a vision for the country’s economy as an open laboratory of innovation and a global platform for entrepreneurship. As a result, the National Innovation Strategy’s seven sectors were transformed into seven purposes that maximize and consolidate individual and institutional efforts across the different sectors in order to achieve the human-centric aspirations of the UAE.

National Strategy for Advanced Innovation Framework

2. Global Influencers

1. A Mindset that Encourages Experimentation and Testing

Creating

AgileGovernment

AdvancedSciences

AdvancedEconomies

LearningConnecting CalculatedRisk-taking

3. Human-centric Purposes

Life Wellbeing Education & Future Skills

Mobility Discovery Green Power


These seven purposes can be achieved by: Establishing a culture of experimentation and testing in society, and fostering a mindset based on Creating, Connecting, Learning and Calculated Risk-taking.

The UAE will have a global impact by focusing on 3 main enablers: Agile Government, Advanced Economies, and Advanced Sciences. The UAE will strive to export its innovations and best practices globally and to develop new unconventional solutions that will inspire the world. Furthermore, the country will aim to develop an agile ecosystem that responds and adapts to the rapid changes and that transforms the UAE into a global open lab for experimentation and testing of ideas and policies of the future.


Technology for Humanity

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A Mindset that Encourages Experimentation and Testing

Creating

Creating is the mindset through which ideas are generated and implemented in order to achieve tangible outcomes in the world. It entails raising questions and conducting experiments that enrich the discussion, contribute to identifying challenges, and inspire new ideas and unconventional solutions. Therefore, by embracing a creative and innovative mindset, the UAE will be able to export its products and creative services to the world.

1 The UAE will focus through the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation on fostering an experimentation mindset that focuses on creating, connecting, learning and calculated risk-taking.

This strategy seeks to encourage calculated risk-taking that allows for experimentation and testing of solutions without fear of failure. This will be driven by a mindset that accepts failure, and that encourages starting with low-risk experiments and gradually increasing the risk level. Calculated risk-taking provides the opportunity to conduct experiments according to certain criteria, without the need for approvals required in the traditional systems. In addition, it encourages perseverance, research and analysis, and defying limitations, all which drives the UAE towards achieving its human-centric purposes.

Calculated Risk-taking


From an innovation-enabling environment to a mindset that encourages experimentation and testing

Connecting

In order to achieve advanced innovation, it is essential to shift towards a mindset of connectedness between the various individuals, institutions, and sectors, especially given that most innovations today result from the meeting of technology, industries and talent. Therefore, the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation focuses on enhancing the connectedness between the different components of the UAE’s innovation ecosystem, thereby promoting knowledge transfer and inspiring innovative solutions to the new challenges facing the world today and in the future.

Learning

The strategy promotes a mindset of continuous learning, rapid testing, prototyping, and learning from failure. Hence, it is important to incorporate feedback loops in all new experiments and designs in order to collect information and insights that could be leveraged rapidly for continuous improvements. This will facilitate the achievements of purposes.

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GlobalInfluencers2


From innovation champions to global influencers

The UAE will focus through the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation on three main enablers: Agile Government, Advanced Economies, and Advanced Sciences to achieve the desired impact.

Advanced Economies

The UAE aspires to become a major player in the global economy, and to achieve advanced rankings in the world's leading economic and sustainability indices driven by fundamental drivers of economic prosperity such as advanced sciences and technology, innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship and environmental sustainability.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation comes as a key enabler by adopting the Fourth Industrial Revolution to improve the UAE’s economic competitiveness, experiment with new economic sectors, encourage emerging businesses and new financial markets, as well as test advanced economic models such as the sharing, circular, and creative economies. Furthermore, it promotes adopting a new approach for measuring economic performance, which includes happiness, wellbeing, social and environmental impact alongside income and economic returns. The strategy also emphasizes the importance of scenario planning around the future of work and workforce in the UAE, and encourages experimenting with alternative funding mechanisms and various organizational tools in order to achieve a leading sustainable and advanced economy in which the individuals and societies enjoy economic empowerment, financial inclusion and prosperity.

Agile Government

The UAE aspires to be the world's leading nation by empowering and building human talent, harnessing science and advanced technology to improve quality of life, offering the best services in partnership with entrepreneurs and the community, and developing proactive policies and legislations. In this context, the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation seeks to experiment and test new government designs and practices that serve the local and global population and achieve agility and speed. Moreover, it also aims to experiment with unconventional partnerships with global organizations, world-class governments, the private sector and individuals, in addition to leveraging technology such as artificial intelligence to develop the best services, systems, policies and legislation.

Advanced Sciences

The UAE aspires to achieve high levels of innovation, patents, inventions, and scientific research. As a result, the UAE has made advanced sciences one of its utmost priorities, hence appointing a Minister of State for Advanced Sciences, forming the Emirates Scientists Council, establishing the Mohammed bin Rashid Academy of Scientists, and launching the Mohammed bin Rashid Centre for Accelerated Research.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation will build on these initiatives to create global impact in the field of advanced science. This will be achieved by experimenting and testing advanced projects that achieve the seven purposes of the strategy, by creating strategic partnerships with global research institutions specialized in basic and applied research, and by strengthening scientific diplomacy.

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Human-centricPurposes3

Disc

over

y

DiscoveryThe UAE is focused on developing the space sector. It has established the Emirates Space Agency, launched the Emirates Space Program and the National Space Policy, in addition to the Emirates Mars Mission aiming to launch the first Arab and Islamic probe arriving to Mars by the UAE’s fiftieth anniversary. Furthermore, the UAE announced the Mars 2117 Strategy in which it aims to establish the first human settlement on Mars by leading international scientific research alliances. Moreover, the UAE launched “KhalifaSat”, the first satellite completely developed by a team of all-Emirati engineers.

The launch of several initiatives in the space sector came as a recognition of its importance in inspiring people, and in driving innovation and development in other sectors. The UAE’s efforts and achievements in the space sector emphasize the importance of pursuing discovery as a purpose across all scientific and technological priority areas defined for the country.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation shifts the focus from priority sectors to specific human-centric purposes, which leads to joint efforts among the various sectors to achieve the desired results.

From focusing on sectors to focusing on human-centric purposes

Life

LifeThe Food and water security is amongst the top priorities in the country. Hence, the government launched its Water Security Strategy 2036 that aims to reduce water demand by 21% and increase the reuse of treated water to 95%, and appointed its first Minister of State for Food Security in 2017.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation aims to shift the focus from water as an independent sector to the purpose of life, which includes the two most important elements of life: water and food. This will be achieved through undertaking experiments in the fields of food and water as outlined in the National Food Security Strategy and the different water strategies across the country. This will strengthen the UAE’s position in providing the fundamental elements for life and prosperity, and will ensure sustainable development for future generations as stated in the UAE Centennial 2071.

Wel

lbei

ng

WellbeingThe UAE has had several successes and innovations in the health sector. This includes providing treatments and health services based on advanced technology, the development of medical research and advanced systems for health management, in addition to designing cities and facilities that promotes healthy and active lifestyles.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation aims to shift the focus from uniquely the health sector to the purpose of wellbeing, which will provide the society with all the future and innovative tools to lead a healthy and purposeful life. This will be achieved through experiments and innovations that increase society’s commitment to preventative health and healthy lifestyles, encourage physical activity, and enhance the quality of mental health services. Furthermore, the strategy aims to develop innovative and futuristic healthcare services that encourage the transition towards self-managed healthcare.

Educ

atio

n an

d Fu

ture

Ski

lls

The UAE has launched several initiatives focused on innovation in the education sector, such as the Mohammed Bin Rashid Smart Education Program that aims to provide the best educational methods, and equip classrooms with advanced technologies that facilitate teaching and learning. The UAE has also succeeded in establishing universities that teach scientific content taught in smart and innovative methods, in addition to introducing curricular and extracurricular activities that build students’ capabilities in innovation and creativity.

Moreover, the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation shifts the focus from the education sector to the purpose of enhancing future skills in students, in order to achieve the UAE Centennial 2071 objective of having the best talents and human capital in the world. This will be achieved by adopting experiments and tests that equip students with 22nd century skills, and by embracing advanced teaching methods that employ advanced technologies to develop global talents and champions, achieve the global competitiveness of UAE universities, and ensure lifelong learning for all members of the society.

Education and Future Skills

Tech

nolo

gy fo

r Hum

anity

The National Innovation Strategy focused on developing the necessary infrastructure for the establishment of smart cities, and on adopting advanced technology based policies and strategies, such as the UAE’s Fourth Industrial Revolution Strategy through which the country aspires to become a leading global hub and open laboratory for 4IR applications. Furthermore, it led to the appointment of the first minister for Artificial Intelligence in the world to encourage the adoption of these future technologies in the different national sectors.

Technological development is considered a key driver of advancement in all future sectors, which is why the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation focuses on achieving the purpose of technology for humanity. This will be accomplished by adopting advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and big data in different priority sectors, developing smart ecosystems, conducting experiments and tests to ensure smart and sustainable lifestyles for future generations, in addition to achieving cyber security and resilience and ensuring ease of access to services at any time and place.

Technology for Humanity

Mob

ility

Mobility The UAE has succeeded in creating, in rec ord time, a world-class infrastructure that supports the country's development needs. In fact, it has also succeeded in pioneering several innovations in the transportation sector including manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles, adopting environment-friendly land and sea transportation methods, testing self-driving vehicles, developing the infrastructure for certain vehicles such as electric charging stations, in addition to manufacturing spare parts for major airlines in the world.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation shifts the focus from the transportation sector to the purpose of mobility as the future with its rapid changes calls for more connectivity and integration. Therefore, the UAE will focus on increasing connection efficiency between individuals through better use of future technologies, improving the connectivity between smart cities, and enhancing the speed of movement of individuals within and among these cities.

Gre

en P

ower

Green Power The UAE has made significant advancements in the clean and renewable energy sector by developing related projects such as the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, Masdar City, and the Mohammed Bin Rashid AlMaktoum Solar Park. In addition, the UAE launched its Energy Strategy 2050 that aims to improve individual and institutional consumption efficiency by 40%, and to increase clean energy contribution to 50% of the total energy produced in the country.

As set out in its Centennial 2071, the UAE aspires to become a global green power. Therefore, the National Strategy for Advanced Innovation shifts the focus from the clean and renewable energy sector to the purpose of becoming a green power through innovative solutions that increase the contribution of clean energy to the overall energy mix produced, and that ensure energy security. Furthermore, it encourages experimenting and testing other potential solutions such as adopting a circular economy, increasing green spaces, adopting low carbon solutions in cities, and developing advanced technological solutions for climate change.

The National Strategy for Advanced Innovation is a major turning point in the journey towards achieving the UAE Centennial 2071 as it focuses on maximizing synergies between all relevant individuals and institutions to achieve higher human-centric purposes.

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National Strategy for Advanced Innovation