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National Priorities Research Program (NPRP)

Objective

This program is intended to support the overarching goal of the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), which is to foster a research culture in Qatar.  Specifically, the grants offered through the National Priorities Research Program (NPRP) will:

  1. build human capital in Qatar
  2. fund research to benefit the nation, the region, and the world
  3. raise Qatar’s profile in the international research community

Description

The NPRP will be the largest funding activity of QNRF. QNRF will conduct one NPRP RFP cycle per year. The program will fund up to $ 45 million in research during the second cycle, and will make grants ranging from $ 20,000 up to $ 350,000 per year.

Responsiveness to Challenges

While Qatar is blessed with an abundance of wealth from its natural resources and has managed to accumulate a large amount of physical capital in a relatively short time, it faces challenges with respect to human capital.  The NPRP will help to build human capital in Qatar by assisting the country's colleges and universities to attract, develop, and retain good faculty.  The NPRP will also provide incentives for institutions to build the organizational infrastructure needed to support researchers. 

Furthermore, the NPRP will help to build human capital through the promotion of knowledge and technology transfer encouraging collaboration with institutions outside of Qatar.

By funding research that will raise Qatar’s profile within the international academic community, the NPRP will help to diminish the geographical isolation felt by some researchers in Qatar; fostering a level of integration with the global research community, to the benefit of the researchers in Qatar and Qatar as a whole.

Potential Benefits

The benefits from this undertaking will be both direct and indirect.  In addition to helping foster research that will directly benefit Qatar, this program will also provide indirect benefits by improving the stock of human capital in the country, thereby bringing a level of prestige to Qatar.