Creativity and innovation in Saudi universities

The education sector is one of the vital sectors that are closely related to societies, and which are driving the national economy. As one of the sayings of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, may God preserve him ((Education in Saudi Arabia is the main pillar by which we achieve the aspirations of our people towards progress and advancement in science and knowledge)). The continuous support from the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, His Highness, the trustworthy Crown Prince – may God protect them – and the Ministry of Education in harnessing all efforts in the transformation into a knowledge economy based on creative and productive human minds and energies, which are strengthened by integrated education represented by what Saudi universities and their supporting deanships do, Especially during the Corona pandemic crisis, it is worthy of attention, research, study and appreciation in promoting investment opportunities that generate job opportunities in various fields, including digital transformation, digital production, and knowledge transfer in various types of sciences.The importance of the education sector and its relationship to the development of the national economy and the development of its human capital is one of the direct contributions to achieving the requirements of the labor market and supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in Saudi universities, which enhance the discovery, understanding, assimilation, measurement and development of creativity and innovators. Before starting the stage of developing, motivating and creating a tangible reality as we feel it and live it around us, it is necessary to lay down the necessary and applied framework and address some basic concepts such as what creativity is, and who are the creative people? What is innovation? What is entrepreneurship, the knowledge economy and national excellence? As the universities’ orientation towards actively contributing to the transfer of the Kingdom’s economy to a knowledge-based economy in accordance with the initiatives of the National Transformation Program and the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, through the transformation into independent research universities, it places the responsibility for advancing the research and educational tasks, which in turn contribute to the graduation of cadres with competitive competencies At the global level, through invention, innovation, application of research and development results, establishment of partnerships, and local academic and economic institutional integration.

In recent years, the world has received the fourth industrial revolution, which revolves around the merging and mixing of information and technology systems of all kinds, such as autonomous cars, drones, big data, renewable energy storage systems and digital currencies, and the widening depth of its influence and its ability to make a fundamental change in the way societies operate and make decisions. And economic relations, and on the other hand, the development of cognitive skills of human energies and the increase in the volume of knowledge and information capital in the community, which contributes to the development of the process of transferring, storing and dealing with knowledge, improving the outputs of societal activity in the industrial sector and achieving national excellence.

Are creative people born? Or are they made?

Of course, and of course, creators are not born and are not created. Rather, it is an integrative complex process whose features are evident after addressing the concept of creativity and innovators and understanding and assimilating these concepts absolute assimilation of them so that we can develop a perception of the tangible reality that we feel which depends on strategic planning far from the horizon and taking into account financial risks and Time and make them challenges with all faith that we can overcome with an unquestionable belief and certainty that the final outcome of the series of processes, procedures and final outputs is a reality we live in and coexist with that adds to our history more global recognition and distinction among peoples. For this, we must discover more creative people and refine their skills through training and qualification for practical and field life, bearing in mind that discovering creativity is a process that needs to be measured first and an incubating environment second together.

The reality of innovation in the Kingdom is growing significantly. On the global knowledge economy index, we can see the Kingdom competing and competing with the ranks of regional and European countries and ahead of the countries of the Pacific and East Asia, as for the scale of patent applications submitted and granted, which included the areas of basic needs, transportation, mining, engineering, physics and construction. It is also growing significantly. The unprecedented efforts made by universities in the Kingdom today in embracing the ideas of graduating students’ projects, for example for many of them, and transforming these projects into pioneering projects through business accelerators and emerging companies, initiatives and follow-up programs for graduates, linking them to the labor market, celebrating their achievements and successes during and after the university stage and praising With ideas, providing support, documenting ways of cooperation with them, and harnessing all resources to sponsor specific projects that contribute to improving the quality of life and achieve national excellence, and examples of that are countless, whether in the field of renewable energy or technology and public health in Saudi universities. The numbers were amazing by all standards, in 2015 the number of Saudi patents reached 409, and in 2016 the number reached 517, and in 2017 the Kingdom ranked 23rd in the world with 664 patents, and in 2018 the number of patents filed reached 1900 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and so forth. It provides a fertile environment for creativity and innovation, supports the knowledge economy and activates the national economy system that focuses on qualitative and professional academic programs in the form of training and qualification courses or professional diplomas and programs for the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, which are based on enhancing the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and actively participate in diversifying its sources and expanding its production base. By expanding the circle of strategic partnerships, agreements and programs that end with employment, especially in advanced information systems, decision-making support, modeling, simulation, advanced data mining, cloud health records, cloud storage, automated leadership, e-learning, digital commerce and automated mining that serve and enhance the fourth industrial revolution, institutional structure, self-investment, governance and entrepreneurship And innovations Walsh Rakat strategy that depends on mixing and integrating information systems and institutional integration to measure effective performance that enables us to develop.