HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education Science and Community Development (QF) will grace the Annual Research Conference (ARC’16) and deliver the leadership address today at the Qatar National Convention Centre.
Held under the patronage of HH Sheikha Moza, the two- day conference under the theme, ‘Investing in Research and Innovating for Society’ is the flagship event of QF Research & Development (QF R&D).
Giving the details of the event, Dr Nabeel al-Salem, executive director, Outreach and Communications at QF R&D said that the two day conference has got huge attention internationally. He was accompanied by Kholoud al-Ali, outreach manager at QF R&D.
Dr al-Salem described that the annual research conference is a research festival for Qatar. The programmes, participation and the number of events all indicate that it is a highly celebrated and much anticipated one. The conference provides a platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration. It aims to tackle the four grand challenges that have already been identified as part of the National Research Strategy.
After the opening of the conference, there will be a keynote panel discussion on Strategic Investment in Research and Innovation which will be attended by some leading international scientists and researchers. Also at the opening session, the winners of the best research award as well as the best innovation award will be announced.
“The conference, this year, is highly successful in different ways. This year we have received over 1,300 research abstracts for the conference. We also have received more than 640 posters for the conference in addition to a large number of technical presentations. We have about 12 satellite events going on along with the main conference,” Dr al-Salem said.
“We will recognise about 60 people with various awards in several categories during the conference. Out of them, we have two special awards which are of very high level. These are the Best Research Project Award and the Best Innovation Award,” Dr al-Salem said.
The Best Research Project Award is funded by the Qatar National Research Fund ( QNRF) and recognises achievements and excellence in research in 2015. The award brings to light contributions made to knowledge and science that have had an impact on policy making or capacity building in Qatar. Over 71 projects were reviewed by the QNRF Director’s Committee for the award.
The Best Innovation Award recognises the most innovative project processed by Qatar Foundation’s Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer for its commercial potential, marketability, and contributes towards developing Qatar’s knowledge and innovation based economy.
The award identifies an invention created by a Qatar entity partially or entirely supported by Qatar Foundation. Candidates for the award were selected from QF’s intellectual property portfolio. The winner was selected out of 280 inventions.
