Why are countries in the Gulf rich but lagging in technological innovation? Countries in the gulf are oil rich. But they are lagging in R&amp;D sector. Governments do not spend much on R&amp;D. Most countries employ foreign contractors or import technologies. 

What is the reason?
Update

Resource Curse literature attempts to address the issues you are raising, take a look at here and here.

Here is an interesting example of a technology transfer case.

Original answer

They do, in fact, have increased the share of R&amp;D spending by a huge margin in the past 5 years. Some of these countries see commerce, trade and tourism as more central to their development than other aspects of development. 

The number of Arab students on government scholarship in the West has been on the rise and many western universities have opened branches in the Middle East, especially in the Gulf countries. In the past, only the rich kids of Arabs were able to go to universities in the West. By default, these kids, did not bother working as scientists or educators, they, probably, stayed in the west or became entrepreneurs. 

Today, with the help of government scholarships, the ordinary folks can send their kids for education, and hopefully, these kids will bring the science to the other ordinary folks in their respective countries. Remember, technological shock is not so fast and abrupt as we assume in the models, it take decades to have a measurable effect in practice. 

As younger 'kings' and 'princes' are involved in politics, there are signs of greater investment in education and science. 

Here is the chart of R&amp;D spending to GDP ratios in the Gulf countries.

In the countries, where younger generation have more say in politics, there the spending on R&amp;D has been higher than in those where older 'kings' rule. See the chart, Qatar and UAE have had higher R&amp;D shares, but the data is limited for these countries.