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Doctoral training centre on cards

A new Doctoral Training Centre will be set up in the country with an aim to engage doctoral candidates from different universities in the country.

A series of innovative programmes will help strengthen the research capabilities of these students and assist them in focusing their research with areas relevant to the UAE.

The University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD) and National Research Foundation (NRF), an initiative of the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Sunday to set up the Centre.

“We believe this MoU marks a milestone in the development of doctoral research in the UAE,” said Professor Ghassan Aouad. “We are privileged and delighted to team up with the National Research Foundation to launch this venture that will create a network connecting this group of future leaders whose expertise will shape the future of the UAE in the coming decades.”

The NRF was created in March 2008 through a decree issued by Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, with a goal of promoting and coordinating research activities, providing research leadership and providing funding support on a competitive basis to research projects in the UAE.

Among the key objectives listed in the MoU include building sustainable research partnerships, addressing the skill gap in doctoral training by providing quality training programmes to postgraduate and doctoral candidates, improving retention of students in doctoral programmes and facilitating creation of uniform standards of research while hosting conferences to facilitate face to face interaction with students and supervisors from different universities.

The initiative will also look at creating networks of doctoral students that will outlive their dissertation studies and provide an electronic platform to facilitate ongoing communication between students at different universities.

Dr Ahmed Alosi, Research Programme Manager at NRF, said: “DTC is a good initiative to help build the research capacity for postgraduate and undergraduate programmes and it will open doors for research collaboration for the students within their research lifecycle. This centre will provide support for industrial and governmental research programmes.”

muaz@khaleejtimes.com