Brunei Darussalam
Content
Structure of the Research System
Overview
Brunei Darussalam is one of the richest countries not only in Southeast Asia, but in the whole world. Due to oil and gas reserves, Brunei ranks among the first Asian countries in quality of living rankings. The extraction and processing of oil and gas is the basis of the city-state’s economy. Its exports (crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas) account for around 60% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Apart from oil, Brunei has some agricultural resources: rice, corn, bananas, spices, cocoa beans, coffee, etc. Still, the economic and social wellbeing in Brunei is highly dependent on oil and gas prices. During the economic and financial crisis from 2008-2009, the GDP suffered a sharp decline (about 2% per year). Although the economy had a significant climb after the crisis in 2011, Brunei suffered much during the last five years, mostly because of oil price fluctuations: The average GDP annual growth was -0.05% (in 2014 it was -2.34%) (World Bank, 2016). The Bruneian government plans to diversify its economic activities from hydrocarbon exports to other industries more related to technology development and innovation such as information and communication technology (ICT) (Asian Development Outlook 2016).
In Brunei, the GDP composition by sector of origin mirrors the focus on oil and related industries: the industry sector makes up 66.8% (2015) of Brunei’s GDP, whereas the service sector accounts for 32.3% and the agriculture sector for barely one percent (0.9%). The labor force is distributed accordingly: 62.8% in industry, 33% in services and 4.2% in agriculture. Compared to other ASEAN countries, unemployment was quite high with 7% in 2014 (lower than in 2011 with 9.3%). In 2015, the inflation rate was -0.2% (consumer prices; World Bank 2016). According to the Corruption Perceptions Index 2013, Brunei was at the 38th position out of 175 countries, showing pretty good results, especially in the Asian region. According to the ‘Doing Business’ Index 2015, the country ranks on 84th position out of 189 countries.
Because of the strong dependence on oil and gas prices, Brunei’s economy is suffering during the last years, revealing strong declines in a number of economic indicators. Along with a drop in the GDP, foreign direct investments (FDI) in Brunei’s economy have been falling since 2013. For instance, in 2012 FDI inflows amounted to US$865 million. In 2015, inflows only summed up to US$173 million. As a result of these inflow patterns, FDI inward stock has also been increasing more moderately than in other ASEAN countries. Brunei’s inward FDI stock was at US$6 billion in 2015, just before Laos with US$5 billion (UNCTAD, 2016).
Science, technology and innovation (STI) development in Brunei is supported by the government and implemented mainly by governmental organisations. The two main bodies related to STI activities in Brunei are the Ministry of Development, focused on science and technology (S&T) policy design and development, and the Brunei Research Council, which coordinates research funding in Brunei and advises the Prime Minister’s Office. In 2007, Brunei introduced ‘Wawasan Brunei 2035’, a national vision based on a sustainable society in the future and aimed at promoting the development of agriculture and information and communication technologies. Another significant governmental policy is the National Development Plan, which is formulated each five years (currently Brunei is implementing the 10th term, 2012-2017) and which foresees an increased S&T budget compared the previous terms. The country set a goal to achieve an economic growth of 6% on an annual average (see: 10th National Development Plan).
In the Global Competitiveness Rankings, Brunei had an almost constant position during the period 2011-2013. Since 2014, Brunei is not longer indexed in the rankings. Innovation factors improved by almost 20 positions to 56th in 2013.
|
Pillars of competitiveness according to the Global Competitiveness Index |
2011-2012 (out of 142) |
2012-2013 (out of 144) |
2013-2014 (out of 148) |
2014-2015 (out of 144) |
2015-2016 (out of 140) |
|
Global Competiveness Index (GCI) Ranking |
28
|
28
|
26 |
Not Indexed |
Not Indexed |
|
Basic requirements |
24 |
21 |
18 |
-- |
-- |
|
1 Institutions |
34 |
31 |
25 |
-- |
-- |
|
2 Infrastructure |
56 |
57 |
58 |
-- |
-- |
|
3 Macroeconomic Environment |
1 |
1 |
1 |
-- |
-- |
|
4 Health and primary education |
30
|
31 |
23 |
-- |
-- |
|
Efficiency enhancers |
71 |
68 |
65 |
-- |
-- |
|
5 Higher education and training |
61 |
57 |
55 |
-- |
-- |
|
6 Goods market efficiency |
82 |
73 |
42 |
-- |
-- |
|
7 Labor market efficiency |
9 |
13 |
10 |
-- |
-- |
|
8 Financial market development |
57 |
56
|
56 |
-- |
-- |
|
9 Technological readiness |
57 |
64 |
71 |
-- |
-- |
|
10 Market size |
121 |
124 |
131 |
-- |
-- |
|
Innovation and sophistication factors |
73 |
62 |
54 |
-- |
-- |
|
11 Business sophistication |
85 |
65 |
56 |
-- |
-- |
|
12 Innovation |
68 |
59 |
59 |
-- |
-- |
Table 1 Brunei in the Global Competiveness Index 2011 - 2016
(See Schwab, The Global Competiveness Report 2011-2012, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, WEF)
In the Global Innovation Index, Brunei was ranked at quite different positions during the period 2011-2014. In 2015 and 2016, Brunei was not indexed. Comparing to 2011, Brunei improved its position in terms of infrastructure (from 115th to 70th), market and business sophistication and, slightly, institutions. However, Brunei lost positions in knowledge and technology and creative outputs. This can be understood as mirroring Brunei’s only recent focus on strengthening STI activities.
|
Pillars of Innovation according to the Global Innovation Index |
2011 (out of 142) |
2012 (out of 144) |
2013 (out of 148) |
2014 (out of 144) |
2015 (out of 141) |
2016 (out of 128) |
|
Global Innovation Index (GII) Ranking |
75
|
53
|
74
|
88
|
Not Indexed
|
Not indexed
|
|
Innovation input sub-index ranking |
70 |
46 |
54 |
55 |
- |
- |
|
Innovation output sub-index ranking |
94 |
69 |
89 |
124 |
- |
- |
|
Innovation efficiency ratio |
101 |
104 |
119 |
139 |
- |
- |
|
1 Institutions |
48 |
28 |
34 |
37 |
- |
- |
|
2 Human capital & research |
77
|
66 |
65
|
95
|
-
|
-
|
|
3 Infrastructure |
115 |
52 |
55 |
70 |
- |
- |
|
4 Market sophistication |
46 |
47 |
84 |
38 |
- |
- |
|
5 Business sophistication |
96 |
85 |
86 |
62 |
- |
- |
|
6 Knowledge & technology outputs |
88 |
84 |
125 |
136 |
- |
- |
|
7 Creative outputs |
87
|
53
|
51
|
102
|
-
|
-
|
Table 2 Brunei in the Global Innovation Index 2011-2016
(See Dutta et al., The Global Innovation Index 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 INSEAD)
Structure of the Research System
Brunei is an energy-rich sultanate, where practically all research activities are public and related to the Sultan of Brunei. Main bodies, which are included in the research governance structure under the Sultan, are the Brunei Economic Development Board, the Brunei Research Council, the Ministry of Development, the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources and the Universities. In addition, the government actively supports the development of small and medium enterprises to run innovation-related projects by providing subsidies (See: Overseas Research Report, 2014).
The Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) is an organisation, which is focused on tasks like the promotion of foreign direct investment or the provision of (research and other) funding support for domestic companies.
The Brunei Research Council (BRC) supports the following priority research fields: energy, environment, ICT, healthcare and food safety. In addition, BRC is responsible for: formulating policies and designing visions, supervising research activities, improving the quality of research and promoting collaboration activities (with non-governmental institutions) etc.
The Ministry of Development is the main body responsible for S&T policy development and implementation in Brunei. The ministry is responsible for general S&T affairs, nuclear power, intellectual properties, standards, metrology, infrastructure development and environment issues. The Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources, on the other hand, has several departments (e.g. the Department of Agriculture and Agrifood), which supervise R&D in the field of agriculture.
The Bruneian Universities conduct research as well. For instance, the University of Brunei Darussalam is the first university in Brunei and implements research activities in areas such as renewable energy, creative industry, modeling, biodiversity, ecology and healthcare. The government actively funds the university. Another considerable body is the Brunei Institute of Technology, which mainly conducts research in green technology, water, petroleum and gas.
Figure 1. Governmental organisation chart related to S&T in Brunei
(source: https://www.jst.go.jp/crds/pdf/en/CRDS-FY2014-OR-02_EN.pdf, page 174)
Key S&T Indicators
Hardly any of the standard S&T indicators are available in Brunei. The information in the tables below provides the most up-to-date figures about population, GDP, foreign direct investments, number of publications and number of patent applications with domestic inventors. As was mentioned before, GDP decreased during the last five years because of oil and gas price fluctuations. The last available data for gross expenditures on R&D (GERD) in Brunei dates back to 2004 with about 0.04% of GDP. However, as also mentioned before, the 10th National development plan stated a significant increase in the S&T budget up to US$ 150 million (€ 15 each year on average for S&T and R&D, which would correspond to around 0.1% of GDP as per current figures). The government finances almost all R&D expenditures. The latest available number of researchers also dates back to 2004 with 244 people by headcount working as researchers.
Looking at other significant indicators, Brunei does not reveal high positions among the ASEAN countries. By number of publications, Brunei has 2136 citable documents listed in Scimago overall 1996-2015 (for instance, Malaysia has 175,146, Thailand – 117,565, Indonesia - 38,371 and Vietnam has 27,989). By number of patent applications, Brunei presents low figures as well (35 applications) after Vietnam with 99 applications, while other ASEAN countries reveal quite high results (Malaysia (4,414), Thailand (1,037) or the Philippines (636). Again, it becomes clear that the small city-state only recently started to focus on matters of STI.
|
Indicator |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
|||
|
Population size (mill) |
399 |
406 |
411 |
417 |
423 |
|
|||
|
GDP (in billions) [1] |
16.7 |
16.9 |
16.1 |
17.1 |
15.5 |
|
|||
|
Total R&D exp |
Not data available |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
|||
|
GERD in % |
Not data available |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
|||
|
Government R&D exp |
Not data available |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
|||
|
Business R&D exp |
Not data available |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
|||
|
Total R&D pers (HC) |
Not data available |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
|||
|
No of researchers (HC) |
Not data available |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
|||
|
Researchers per million inhabitants (HC) |
Not data available |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
||||
Table 3 Key Indicators – Brunei’s economy, research, development
|
Indicator |
Value |
Year |
|
Number of publications [2] |
341 |
2015 |
|
Total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) rate |
No data available |
-- |
|
Flow of Inward FDI [3] |
US$ 173m (€ 153m) |
2015 |
|
Stock of Inward FDI [4] |
US$ 6,162m (€ 5,468m) |
2015 |
|
Flow of Outward FDI [5] |
US$ 508m (€ 450 m) |
2015 |
|
Number of patent applications [6] |
35 |
2003-2013 |
Table 4 Key indicators – Brunei’s business and research links
[1]Data from The World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org/); Current prices in US$ and € in ()
[2] Citables in Journals; Scimago 2016: http://www.scimagojr.com/countrysearch.php?country=mm
[3] UNCTAD World Investment Report 2016:http://unctad.org/en/publicationchapters/wir2016_AnnexTables_en.pdf
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] A patent applications with inventors from Thailand; Degelsegger, Philipp: “Analysis of the ASEAN patent activity”, draft report, 2016, p.43
Flag © of redpixart
