Announcing the Awards of UREP's 12th Cycle

Qatar National Research Fund, QNRF, announced today the outcome of the 12th cycle of its funding program; 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-over of expertise between academia and other institutions in Qatar.

In this 12th UREP cycle, QNRF received 127 research proposals, each of which was evaluated by three independent peer reviewers. The average score of the proposals was 77.4%. In order to maintain a high quality level for the awarded UREP proposals while sustaining a good success rate, the QNRF Steering Committee decided to adopt a cutoff score of 83% for this cycle, which resulted in the award of 43 research proposals, engaging 160 undergraduate students across 7 academic institutions.

Commenting on the results, Dr. Abdul Sattar Al-Taie, Executive Director, QNRF, said "Since October 2006 QNRF has implemented twelve UREP cycles in which a total of 1386 research proposals have been submitted for peer review and 602 proposals have been awarded".

Dr. Al-Taie highlighted the fact that this cycle is record-breaking in terms of the number of students awarded and continues to achieve considerable success in attracting undergraduate students from universities in Qatar. Dr Al-Taie went on to add that, "once again, the awarded projects in this cycle are very diversified, and will allow students to develop their knowledge and understanding of research methods while furthering the research culture in Qatar"