Scientific Research Status in Sudan until 2020

This report aims to highlight the scientific research situation in Sudan for it is considered the most important scientific, intellectual, and cognitive university outcomes and production, and has several contributions in different aspects of the social development field. The following question represents the report's main problem: What is the scientific research fact in Sudan? This report is divided based on the following elements: Scientific research facts in Sudan according to the global database; and scientific research facts as seen by Sudanese researchers.


Introduction
Scientific research has a significant role in society's evolution and prosperity, its aid in solving society's problems, and helps with suitable strategies and plans to lead societies to development. Developed countries give great concern for the scientific research sector, besides great funding, also trains students, universities, and academics to be researchers. Scientific research considers the most vital higher education pillars and most important indicator for state development, so the state is keen to develop its institutions, increase in scientific research and allocate a high budget [1].
Compared with the developed world, there is a visible great gap in the scientific research system despite conducting various research and results in publishing, this means that in Sudan we concentrate on theoretical science more than applied science, which leads to less scientific and research level in a country.
First the understanding of the concept of scientific research, in order to be able to state scientific research facts in Sudan, some researchers define it as "trial of discover, search for, develop and examine the knowledge, then investigate it with accuracy and critically, then presented it completely and cleverly to contribute in civilization developing". Others say "ways of systematic thinking depend on scientific observation, facts and digits in substantive studying of socio-economic phenomena with honest, without personal influences, biases and gains, thus scientific research solves all different society problems and participates in society stabilization and happiness of individuals [2]. So, countries pursue strategic planning for its ability to build strategies that specify developing methods and enhance scientific research practices to face challenges.

Ministry of higher education and scientific research strategies in Sudan 2020 -2030
This 10-year strategy was prepared to reform higher education and scientific research section, and it relies on higher education and scientific research policies document, which done by the ministry in April 2020 with collaboration with World Bank and contains the following [3]: The brief of most important higher education and scientific research strategy, which comes as a response for big challenges that the sector faces, in a conference in 19 August, ministry of higher education and scientific research announced its strategy for next 10 years (2020-2030), universities and research managers have been call to acknowledge the strategy and express their opinion on it, experts and specialized in higher education fields introduced to Minister of higher education and scientific research and to Under-Secretary, evaluating vision of the strategy, this strategy that linked to December revolutionary slogans is consider a unique step in short-term action plan building (10 years) with clear goals to rise higher education and scientific research level in Sudan, in their evaluation they said that strategy distinguished by ambitious goals but without clarifying procedures or measures for effectiveness of changes and suggested policies [3].
This paper [4] discusses and evaluates the strategy policies by highlighting its features and introducing specific suggestions to include in the strategy plan to be more effective and cope with the present reality of universities and scientific research institutions and problems that paralyze it. Some observations and suggestions could improve strategy drafts like: the strategy did not clarify the link between new strategy with transition government strategy and country future plans, to build ministry plans according to it. It was expected to be built by a wide contribution from all ministry components and varied representatives from all different universities to form based on the reality of universities and research foundations.
Also leaked information states that the present strategy plan developed by a team formed by the ministry and by help from similar reports and experts made by UNESCO for west Saharan African states [5]. The strategy discussion was unfortunately limited by calling universities and research centers managers to brief discussion in terms of perception and discussion time, most other university leaders did not participate in planning, determine priorities and procedures for this strategy, which made it unsuitable for universities' realities, many did not know about it until the final draft was released. For example, the visions included in new strategies like tertiary institution The strategy did not determine how to build tertiary institutions independently and how to reform them, specify their roles and authorities and relation between institutions and the Ministry and Higher Education National Council that was mentioned in the new strategy priorities.
The vision mainly focuses on: scientific research support strategy, organizing priorities, providing communication methods for Sudanese universities to communicate with international and regional universities and research centers.
The following should be part of new strategy priorities and did not elaborate: Scholarships and external training policies, offer sustainable research and science collaboration opportunities with international universities and conventions building.
The vision mentions Sudanese universities ranking international and national, but did not indicate how to benefit from Sudanese universities graduates to rise to university level especially in scientific research and publication, besides supporting industry and economic institutions and cooperation between academic institutions, preparing scientific environment and alumni database construction.

Situation of Scientific Research in Sudan globally
Comparing with United State of America (USA) and based on expenditure index, scientific product, staff number in scientific research, found that expenditure volume of scientific research in Sudan does not equal 1 to 120 expenditure volume in united states, and Sudanese universities expenditure on scientific research does not exceed 1% while USA universities reaches 40% from total expenditure.
In 2003 [6], a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report mentioned that in Sudan, scientific research depends on government funding only -which is a great challenge to this sector, while the government expenditure in Canada reaches 40%, 30% in the USA, less than 20% in Japan. As for scientific publication we are not even close to neighboring countries where the participation of Saudi Arabia in this field reaches 0.1% in specialized journals while Sudan produces only 0.008%, according to the report. In developed country number of staff in scientific research fields in each million from population reach 3391 in USA, 3082 in Japan, 360 in Spain, 308 in Greece, it is important of quickly to upward scientific research field through hard work, states need huge investment in human and obtaining technical capacity, it considers the key for progress and survive knowledge and mastering modern science, techniques and produce knowledge [6].
In the recent years, number of scientific research staff decrease in Sudan, according to Harby [7], the number of faculty members who migrate to Arabian Gulf countries and Europe increase continuously, some statistics indicate that from 12,000 faculty members, 3000 migrate, other statistics duplicate this number, New Arabi website rise the number to 13000 faculty members migrate to Gulf, Europe countries and the United States.

Total Science Performance
The following is an overview on science performance in Sudan, (

Scientific Publications
Scientific publication ratio based on 4 standards according to Scopus website, scientific publication ratio in higher 10% more citations globally, including 16.9% in 10% best journals [8]. Scientific publication accomplished by cooperation with foreign institutions, which is called international collaboration, reaches 70%, while publications achieved by alliance academic institutions and local companies is 1.7% shown in Table 2.

Scientific publication through years
Sudan publication share in the highest 1% and 10% from most seen publication in years 2011-2020, except 2011 and 2013 when the number of publications were greatly decreased, number of publications in highest 1% was close ratio, also except 2011 number of publications in highest 10% were also close ratio, it's important to acknowledge the reasons of less publication in specific period of time this study will probably be starting point for next year's reports as indicated in Figure Figure 5 Medicine is the most publication field in Sudan with 1750 publications and 16.7% ratio, followed by Engineering with less than 1205 publication (10.9%), then Biological and Agricultural Science (9.6%), Computer Science (8.1%), Biochemistry, Genetic and Molecular Biology (7.8%), small ratio increasing in Chemical (4.8%), comparing with Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, Material Science, Ecology, Immunology, Microbiology, and Social Science with ratio 4.3% -3.5%, then Pharmacy, Toxicology, Pharmaceutical Preparation, Chemical Engineering, Earth, Planet and Energy Sciences, Veterinary and other multi specialized fields. The following fields had less than 250 publications with closed ratio, Business Administration, Accounting and Management, Economy, Econometric, Finance, Decision Making, Art and Humanities, Neuroscience, Dentistry, Nursing, Health Sub professions and Psychology Sciences. Medicine fields have higher fieldweighted citation impact, but in Medicine fields there is not always positive correlation, for example, specialization like Ecology, in spite of being non-ranked among most publication fields Chemical Engineering and Neuroscience had a high impact [9].

Scientific publication according to Scopus references
ICCEEE Conference published the highest number of scientific publications in 2018, with 120 scientific publications, followed by numbers of conferences and scientific journals with 45 -108 publications [10]. Average number of quotations depend on resource or scientific research publication subject area not publication numbers or authors numbers as tabulated in Table 3.  Table 4, expresses international collaboration at a high ratio compared with local and institutional collaboration, which appear clearly in science product and quotation number, while national and institutional collaboration are close in quotation and product. Individual authorship shows the scientific product hardship that faces by individual authors. High ratio of international collaboration. This clarifies dependency of national scientific products, which rest greatly on international institutions and partnership. Scientific research independence in Sudan comes from national institution collaboration and individuals' communication inside each institution.  According to the data in the table, the collaboration of non-academic institutions was 98.3% which is a high academic output compared to Academic institutions that did not exceed 1.7%. This shows the weakness of partnerships and cooperation among the Sudanese Academic institutions as previously mentioned.

Research institutions listed in scopus datasets measuring tool (Scival)
According to Scival8, only 19 Sudanese research institutions are in the databases, most of which are universities. The list also included the National Research Center, the Federal Ministry of Health, the Sudanese Atomic Energy Commission, and the Sudan Veterinary Research Administration, as displayed in the previous table. According to the listed results, the University of Khartoum has the highest percentage of scientific products, number of authors, and citations. In second place is the University of Sudan, with a product difference of almost half. There is a direct relationship between the authors and the scientific products as shown in the prior table. However, the number of citations is not always like the number of the scientific product, as it is in the case of the Federal Ministry of Health, which has 20,267 citations compared to the scientific product 208. Sometimes the citation comes according to the type or topic of the published scientific research and not the number of published research. This result confirms the presentation previously that the scientific research in Medicine is one of the highest in the number of scientific publications and the number of citations as shown in Table 6.

Field Inquiry Procedures
After processing the theoretical framework, the research team resorted to the field study to clarify the reality of scientific research in Sudan.

Research Methodology
The research team followed the descriptive-analytical approach as it fits the nature of the data and objectives of this research because it depends on collecting facts and analyzing, interpreting, and drawing conclusions from them, which also includes studying the characteristics related to the reality of scientific research in Sudan.

Research Community
The research community consists of university employees, workers in scientific research centers, and those interested in scientific research.

Research Sample
The number of the research sample individuals was 224, from the research community, which is the amount available to the research team. A survey has been conducted to see their opinions about scientific research in Sudan. Below is a description of the characteristics of the individuals in the research sample (personal data). They are classified according to gender, educational qualification, occupational degree, and employer.

Questionnaire description
The research team designed a questionnaire to be the fundamental research tool. The research team used the five-point Likert scale: (Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree) to choose the appropriate answer.

Questionnaire components
The questionnaire consists of two sections: Section one: Includes basic data, like gender, academic qualification, job grade and employer.
Section two: The research team designed a five-choice questionnaire to let each examinee answer the questionnaire's phrases according to what suits his/her opinion.

Research tool
The research tool is the means that the research team used to collect the necessary information about the research subject -the reality of scientific research in Sudan-. The research team used the questionnaire as a tool for collecting data from the research sample because it is the appropriate tool for the research problem and its questions.

Questionnaire application
The research team contacted the members of the research community after obtaining their approval to participate, introducing them to the research they are doing and explaining the procedures to be implemented. They showed significant cooperation, then they sent the link to them to fill out the questionnaire. There were 224 complete and analyzable questionnaires, then it emptied their contents and converted their variables into numbers to facilitate analyzing the information. Questionnaire correction scale: The Likert Scale was relied on in the Questionnaire scale, and its correction was as follows:

Statistical methods
Analysis of the information and data obtained by the research team through the questionnaire. The data was entered into the computer using the -Statistical Package for Social Science-(SPSS), and then a set of statistical methods were applied:

Results and Discussion
Survey Analysis

Gender
From the survey analysis results the frequency distribution of the research sample members according to the gender variable, indicates 116 individuals with a rate of 52.8% males versus 108 females with 48.2% percentage. The number of female research sample members is close to the number of males, which is a good sign of the reality of scientific research in Sudan, regardless of the gender of the responder.

Academic Qualification
The frequency distribution of the research sample individuals according to the educational qualification variable indicated that 119 individuals, with a percentage of 53.1% hold a doctorate degree which was the highest frequency among the categories of academic qualifications followed by 81 individuals with a percentage of 36.2% hold a master's degree, while the percentage of bachelor degree holders was 10.7% as the lowest among all categories. It can be said that the scientific qualification of the research sample individuals was in favor with the research topic.  Table 8 shows the occupational degree distribution for the research sample individuals, as it is noted: for the employees in the teaching staff in the universities, the results showed that 62 individuals (27.7%) were assistant professors, followed by 61 individuals (27.2%) were lecturers in universities with the highest frequency in the occupational degree categories, while the lowest percentage was 1.3% as teaching assistants, while the percentage of students was 5.4%.

Occupational degree
For workers in research centers, the results showed that 16 individuals, with a rate of (7.1%) working as a researcher, had the highest frequency in the occupation degree categories. On the contrary, the lowest percentage reached 1.3% for research associates, while the percentage of those occupying other positions was 11.6%.

The Employer
The distribution of the research sample individuals according to the employer was found that 167 of the sample individuals were from universities, which represent 74.6% of the sample, followed by 44 of the sample individuals at a rate of 19.6% who are working in other employers, then 13 of the sample members with 5.8% rate, worked in research centers.

Validity and consistency of the questionnaire
Apparent validity means the ability of the tool to achieve the same results when it is reapplied and its ability to measure the purposes it was designed for. Apparent validity here means the extent to which the questionnaire's phrases are relevant to the purposes it was designed for, which refers to the general form of the questionnaire, the clarity in the formulation of its phrases and language integrity, clarity of instructions, and the correctness of the basic steps' order. The apparent validity of the questionnaire was verified by presenting its paragraphs to the peer reviewers to express their opinions and observations about the statements of each questionnaire and the formulation of its words. The research team made the modifications recommended by the peer reviewers. SPSS statistical software was used to measure the consistency and validity and to verify the validity of the questionnaire to be applied. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated to measure the consistency coefficient, subjective validity coefficient = consistency coefficient √. The axes of the questionnaire about scientific research barriers in Sudan were all greater than (0.75) except for the second axis (0.53), which is the level of acceptance of the consistency coefficient of the application the axis of psychological barriers, and the total consistency of it reached (0.92). The total subjective validity coefficient reached 0.96, their validity and consistency are valid for the field application.

Presentation and analysis of the barriers to scientific research in Sudan questionnaire's data:
Presentation and analysis of the first axis data -Cognitive barriers The results in Table 12 indicate that the lack of scientific communication through conferences, seminars and other ways are considered the highest cognitive barrier, followed by the lack of foreign languages, the weak scientific preparation of the researcher, and his lack of scientific research skills.
Although his ability to choose the research topic with a rate of more than 60%, his familiarity with his field of specialization, following up on developments, and possession of skills and tools that help him in analyzing and writing scientific research, such as computer skills.

Presentation and analysis of data for the second axis -psychological barriers
It is notable that Table 13 below represents the psychological barriers that the Sudanese researcher suffers from. We find the lowest value of what motivates success financially and morally, followed by psychological pressures resulting from teaching, administrative and other burdens, and the sense of the futility of conducting the research he is doing came at a slightly lower rate than the previous elements. Presentation and analysis of the third axis data -social barriers: