Executive Director’s Message | February 2022

A message from Dr. Hisham Sabir, QNRF's interim executive director

Last year, Qatar National Research Fund completed fifteen years of its operation. During this time, we have stayed true to our mission of enabling research excellence in Qatar across all disciplines and at all levels, and have successfully contributed towards building a world-class research ecosystem that is helping produce innovative solutions for the challenges faced by Qatar, the region, and globally.

We are proud of our achievements which would not have been realized without the sheer dedication and hard work of our team and its leadership. Here, I would like to specially acknowledge the role played by Dr. Abdul Sattar Al-Taie, who retired last week, after serving QNRF as the founding executive director since its inception. For the past fifteen years, Dr. Al-Taie has exemplified decisive and consistent leadership to lead QNRF’s evolution from the first of its kind research funding agency in the region to a globally renowned player in the RDI sector. As the new interim director, and on behalf of all my colleagues, I am grateful for the work Dr. Al-Taie has done over the years and congratulate him on an illustrious career.

QNRF is now entering a new phase in its journey as we have an important role to play in realizing the national Research, Development, and Innovation Agenda. We have built critical education and research infrastructure capabilities in the past fifteen years and are now working towards integrating it in the dynamic local RDI ecosystem to translate the impact of our funded research into tangible economic and societal benefits and realize Qatar’s national RDI vision.