Leading UK Universities Back Qatar Robotic Research

Qatar has the third largest natural-gas reserves in the world; the per-capita share of those reserves is 55 times that of reserves in top-ranked Russia, which has a larger population. As a result, Qatar can afford to fund high-tech centers and research initiatives from the world’s leading universities. The latest initiative of the Qatar Foundation, an education charity, is a center for robotic surgery, with Imperial College London, Oxford University and six US universities. The foundation will also fund a chair of Islamic studies at Oxford. The future of the Middle East rests in “the development of human capital and the application of knowledge,” explains Mohammed Fathy Saoud, the foundation's president. Some critics express concern about the endowments restricting the academic freedom, and point out that countries should fund priority programs themselves, without relying on external sources. – YaleGlobal