section_path: Economy/Science and technology
section_name: Science and technology
paragraph_text: Science and technology
  
  The Moroccan government has been implementing reforms to improve the quality of education and make research more responsive to socio-economic needs. In May 2009, Morocco's prime minister, Abbas El Fassi, announced that investment in science and technology would rise from US$620,000 in 2008 to US$8.5 million (69 million Moroccan dirhams) in 2009 to finance the laboratories construction, training courses for researchers and a scholarship programme for science during a meeting at the National Centre for Scientific and Technical Research. Morocco was ranked 66th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, an increase in ranking from 2020 at 75th.
  
  The Moroccan Innovation Strategy was launched at the country's first National Innovation Summit in June 2009 by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Investment and the Digital Economy. The Moroccan Innovation Strategy fixed the target of producing 1,000 Moroccan patents and creating 200 innovative start-ups by 2014. In 2012, Moroccan inventors applied for 197 patents, up from 152 two years earlier. In 2011, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and New Technologies created a Moroccan Club of Innovation, in partnership with the Moroccan Office of Industrial and Commercial Property. The idea is to create a network of players in innovation to help them develop innovative projects.
  
  The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is supporting research in advanced technologies. The Moroccan Phosphate Office (Office chérifien des phosphates) has invested in a project to develop a smart city, King Mohammed VI Green City, around Mohammed VI University located between Casablanca and Marrakesh, at a cost of DH 4.7 billion (circa US$479 million). In 2012, the Hassan II Academy of Sciences and Technologies identified a number of sectors where Morocco has a comparative advantage and skilled human capital, including mining, fisheries, food chemistry and new technologies. It also identified a number of strategic sectors, such as renewable energies, health sectors, the environment and geosciences.
  
  On 20 May 2015, less than a year after its inception, the Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research presented a report to the king offering a Vision for Education in Morocco 2015–2030. The report advocated making education egalitarian and, thus, accessible to the greatest number. The report also recommended developing an integrated national innovation system which would be financed by gradually increasing the share of GDP devoted to research and development (R&D) from 0.73% of GDP in 2010 to '1% in the short term, 1.5% by 2025 and 2% by 2030'. As of 2015, Morocco had three technoparks. Since the first technopark was established in Rabat in 2005, a second has been set up in Casablanca, followed, in 2015, by a third in Tangers. The technoparks host start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises specialising in information and communication technologies (ICTs), 'green' technologies (namely, environmentally friendly technologies) and cultural industries. According to Office Marocain de la Propriété Industrielle et Commerciale, patent filing in Morocco grew by 167% during the period 2015–2019.
  
  In 2024, Morocco is among the top four most-connected populations of a country to the Internet in Africa by number of population. In 2022, the number of internet users in Morocco reached around 31.6 million. Later, as of January 2024, Morocco had approximately 34.5 million internet users; it has a penetration rate of about 90.7%. Morocco has several Internet-related projects; an example of such is the National Digital Development Strategy 2030. In 2024, as part of another program called the Connected Campus, the American wireless network provider Cambium Networks deployed 18,000 Wi-Fi access points for public universities in Morocco.