Newsroom

Welcome to the sixth edition of QNRF’s newsletter, ‘Research Matters’. For over the past three months, we have been working from home as per the instructions of the Government of Qatar to control the spread of COVID-19. However, it is still business as usual at QNRF, and though separated by distance, our staff has been working together diligently under our guiding mission of enabling research excellence in Qatar and improving the standard of life, education, and health for its citizens and residents.

A research project has identified the main solid waste streams in Qatar for potential use in construction and investigated advanced technologies for recycling that could be effectively applied in the country. In a statement, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) said it was awarded the project by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) regarding the implementation of recycled materials in construction.

A research study spearheaded by clinical researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) has shown for the first time that type-2 diabetes can be reversed in those originating from the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region. 
The internationally competitive work is the first intensive lifestyle intervention trial in the Mena region and the first clinical trial in primary care in Qatar. The clinical trial demonstrated significant weight loss as well as reversal of type 2 diabetes in more than 60% of intervention participants.

A research team from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university, received the Best Paper award for 2019 from the Journal of Information Systems Education (JISE). The paper arose from a multi-year research project called Scaffolding Literacy in Academic and Tertiary Environments in Qatar (SLATE-Q), which was funded by Qatar National Research Fund. Silvia Pessoa, Maria Pia Gomez-Laich, Divakaran Liginlal, and Thomas Mitchell authored the winning submission.

Augmenting the efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, the Qatar Mobility Innovations Centre (Qmic) is developing an innovative mechanism that will be made available by July to enforce efficient quarantine measures for people coming to the country.

RESEARCH projects designed to help children with autism learn from home, enforce quarantine measures, and safeguard mental health of healthcare workers, will be supported through a new, streamlined funding call launched by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), to help Qatar combat COVID-19.
With the needs of Qatar and the health and safety of its people as its priority, the Qatar Foundation (QF) member – which is the region’s leading research funding agency – developed the Rapid Response Call (RRC) from scratch in record time and accelerated the evaluation and funding phases to ensure that the proposed outcomes of awarded projects are met as soon as possible.

Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) is proud to announce the results of the first Rapid Response Call (RRC), a unique research program which enables researchers to explore novel and cutting-edge potential solutions to the numerous challenges currently faced across all sectors and at all levels of society because of the COVID-19 outbreak.