Challenges and Opportunities for Human Capital and Research in Omans Innovation System: Analyzing Global Innovation Index Data for 2012-2024

Vision 2040 outlines the Sultanate's overarching vision to diversify its economy, turning away from being predominantly resource-based into a knowledge-led country. This vision, authorized by His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik in 2020, builds on the country's historical strengths as it confronts the realities of an evolving global economy.

The vision is a major change in how the Omanis manage their economy. As it diversifies away from a centralized, petrochemical economy the Sultanate. Positions itself to approach its future plans. This will involve supporting sectors including tourism, manufacturing fisheries and technology to grow alongside fiscal reforms and decentralization measures. A National Program for Enhancing Economic Diversification (Tanfeedh) has been launched aimed at identifying sectors for development, stimulating innovation and raising competitiveness.

Human Capital Development: This is one of the major areas that Vision 2040 aims to develop. The aligned plan for education reform, skill-building and job creation to ready Omanis for the future workforce4. This is in line with the vision of creating a "knowledge-based society" to enhance innovation and economy growth.

With Oman national Goals 2040, the Sultanate looks towards both opportunities and challenges when it comes to future progress. The success of this vision rests on the ability to realize planned reforms, attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and develop human capital in a diversified knowledge-based economy. This article examines how Oman performed in the Human Capital & Research (HCR) pillar of the Global Innovation Index from 2012 to It provides an analysis on where it needs to catch-up or accelerate efforts towards laying down a foundation for innovation-driven economy congruent with Vision highest levels all well based upon which; ambitious policies and approaches are proposed by Vision.

II.    METHODOLOGY

The main data source for this research is a quantitative analysis of secondary data pulled from the reports of the Global Innovation Index from 2012 up to 2024. Oman’s HCR indicators are trend analyzed and compared to regional peers.

III.    RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Human capital and its alteration, investigating development are critical impetuses for financial expansion and strength, as noticed in the Oman Vision 2040 structure nowadays. In Oman Creativity and innovation are essential for economic development.

This study will review Oman’s innovation environment and whether its improving similar to what Vision 2040 is looking for by looking at GII indicators from 2012 to 2024 This understanding of these dynamics will enable us in identifying key strategic areas for strengthening human and research capabilities that can drive sustainable economic development.

The emphasis of Oman’s Vision 2040 on innovation and infrastructure development is a key factor in moving towards economic diversification while enhancement of growth ability. The GII ranks Oman among the leading indicators of improvement in these areas.

Using about 80 indicators, the GII seeks to present a comprehensive perspective of innovation across political environment, education, infrastructure and business sophistication. As a result, Oman’s performance on the GII is a very important benchmark of Oman’s progress toward Vision 2040 goals. According to the 2024 GII, Oman stood at 74 out of 133 countries as ranked in seven indicators. This ranking is the outcome of efforts by the country to advance its innovation ecosystem in line with Vision 2040 objectives.

In particular Oman topped its GII1 score in one of the highest scores on the "Infrastructure" indicator. This complements Vision 2040 position on the significance of developing world class infrastructure as a key driver of economic diversification and sustainable growth.

However, over the four years, Oman’s performance in the GII turned around, starting 2020 at 43rd, 2021 at 45th, then 2022 at 40th and then falling to 52nd in 2023. This inconsistency is an indication that human capital accumulation and research have not been well developed.

On average, most Gulf countries improved from 2020 to 2023, compared to the downward slide of Oman in 2023. The UAE and Saudi Arabia climbed above Bahrain to make them the top two in the list, but Oman ranked in the middle compared with the other Gulf nations.

Singapore achieved better progress than other countries, from 8th to 2nd place. Turkey's performances floated up and down but overall delivered more than Iran, and Iran shows basically the same fluctuating results. During this period of time Morocco consistently came in clear behind the Gulf countries, with little improvement.

Oman's big fall in ranking for 2023 is worth noting considering the other Gulf countries are going from strength to strength. This illustrates the necessity for Oman to enhance and support its IQ, research and initiatives that are in accordance with the country’s Vision 2040 goals, in order to keep up to regional peers.

After starting out at 36 in 2013, Oman saw a significant fall in its ranking in 2014 when it was ranked 73rd. For this period implies difficulties of maintaining and developing human capital and research potential.

Oman's recovery and improvement began from 2018 to 2022. Again, the country climbed back up the rankings and reached 35th place again in 2019. This period was a successful effort in advancing education and research efforts.

In 2023, Oman’s ranking fell to 52th and then to 66th in 2024. The latest decline is an indication of the problems or difficulties relating to human capital and research development.

Oman's performance is low with high volatility in general. Periods of professional improvement have been punctuated by periods of the country difficulty maintaining a steady upward trajectory. Most recently the decline has been especially noteworthy and something that policymakers should attend to.

Oman has advanced in a number that areas of education, but education in research and development remains problematic. The volatility in the Education sub pillar shows that any improvement here is not easy to sustain. All three sub pillars declined recently in 2024 and this requires renewed focus in human capital and research development to enhance innovation capabilities of Oman and for attaining its Vision 2040 goals.

The trends suggest that just as Oman greatly invested in education and reaped returns for education outcomes in the early to mid-2010s, sustaining such progress has been a challenge. All indicators have declined recently; hence, it is time for education spending, pupil-teacher ratios, and school life expectancy to be improved all over Oman if the country is to contribute to global education performance.

If these trends are taken into account, it is clear that the effort to promote science and engineering differs in Oman compared to what it was 30 years earlier, and it is in line with the objectives of building a knowledge based economy.

While improvements in overall tertiary enrolment is a positive, there may still be ways for these rates to be lifted. Stable rankings ranked in the inbound mobility suggest that while Oman remains attractive to the international student population, there is scope to improve this component of its tertiary education system.

Some parts of Oman education have made tremendous progress for instance conditions regarding government funding per pupil in secondary education. However, the erratic expenditure on education as represented in percentage of GDP shows that there is an irregular investment in education which might thwart the long term development of the sector.

In science and engineering, Oman does particularly well: The country's production of graduates in these fields is on par with if not above the world's best and over the last 30 years it has been one of the seven strongest among all countries for a constant and high ranking. The strengths are well matched to the development of a knowledge based economy. Nevertheless, tertiary enrollment rates are rising, but remain below desired levels.

Additionally, it would provide Oman the chance to enhance the industry-academia collaboration that can enhance R&D performance and knowledge transfer. The demographic profile of the country; about half of its population is aged below 28 and many of its younger population are in school; makes it a valuable asset to nurture the country's future workforce.

IV.    CONCLUSION