Announcing the Outcome of UREP's 8th Cycle

Qatar National Research Fund, QNRF, is pleased to announce the outcome of the 8^th cycle of the Undergraduate Research Experience Program, UREP.

UREP aims at spreading research culture amongst undergraduate students by engaging them in “hands on” research projects under the guidance of their academic supervisors. UREP also encourages collaboration between academic and non-academic institutions to promote cross breading of expertise between academia and other institutions in Qatar.

During the 8^th UREP cycle QNRF received 123 research proposals, each of which was evaluated by three independent peer reviewers. The average score of all 123 peer reviewed research proposals was 78%. In order to maintain a high quality level for the awarded UREP proposals, QNRF Steering Committee has decided to adopt a cutoff score of 83% for this cycle, which resulted in the award of 54 research proposals engaging 187 undergraduate students across 6 academic institutions.

Commenting on the above, Dr. Abdul Sattar Al-Taie, QNRF’s Executive Director, said "QNRF has implemented, since October 2006, eight UREP cycles in which a total of, 874 research proposals have been submitted for peer reviewing and 412 proposals have been awarded." Dr. Al-Taie added "what makes this eighth cycle special is the fact that we have surpassed the one thousand threshold of the number of undergraduate students engaged, whose exact number now reached 1143. This will greatly contribute of the human capital in research, which is one of the milestones for building the knowledge based economy and Qatar Vision of 2030."