QNRF recently hosted the Global Research Council (GRC) Regional Meeting (RM) for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region The GRC is an informal organization among public funding agencies worldwide. In a global research environment, researchers already cooperate and it is imperative that funding agencies work together to enable these collaborations, something that is encouraged by the GRC. QNRF spoke to Dr Graham Harrison, representing the National Science Foundation for the GRC during his recent visit to Doha.

Anhi Hong has a background in financial economics and has previously worked in the post-award offices of King's College London, Imperial College, and KAUST in Saudi Arabia. He joined QNRF in 2011.

During my time at KAUST I first heard about Qatar Foundation through networking and gradually more every day in the media. Up until then I knew very little about Qatar. Whilst researching QF, I came across QNRF, and the vital role they played in facilitating a research culture in Qatar and engaging renowned researchers from around the world to collaborate and conduct research with scientists here in Qatar. QF and QNRF, with their initiatives and mission to unlock human potential, was appealing. I felt with my background and experience I can contribute to this cause and it has been a wonderful journey so far. 

During the last quarter, QNRF has launched two new funding programs designed to plug the gap between its Undergraduate Research Experience Program (UREP) and the Junior Scientist Research Experience Program (JSREP).

QNRF bid for the right to host the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Regional Meeting of the Global Research Council (GRC) at its Doha headquarters in December.

Whenever a company finds a target to mine oil or gas, environmentalists and residents on that land throw their arms in the air. There is no disputing the potential damage these projects could cause the environment. A big reason for this is that the wells can leak. These wells are lined with pipe that is sealed by concrete. Researchers are now working on an evolutionary race between testing methods and material improvements to make leaking wells a thing of the past.

The publications listed below have recently been published in peer-reviewed, academic journals by researchers funded by QNRF grants and are categorised according to their discipline:

A lot of preparation goes into the things we have come to take for granted as petroleum byproducts - namely, plastics. The energy-intensive methods employed to transform oil from the ground into, say, your standard disposable cup involve key chemicals called olefins, also known as alkenes.

It was at the 5th QNRF Annual Forum, back in May 2013, that QNRF promised to introduce a more intimate way for its funded researchers to interact with members of the public and, once again, I am pleased to say that QNRF has delivered on its promise by introducing the Research Outcome Seminars, a series of talks given by QNRF-funded researchers. The seminars allow them to share the progress they have made in their projects and let them show how it will have an impact on the lives of Qatar’s citizens. The researchers are effective communicators who can see beyond the raw data and bring the moments to life to make the science compelling. Read more about that in this Newsletter.

December saw the launch of an innovative series of QNRF–driven QF R&D seminars designed to connect researchers and the wider public audience in Qatar. By giving the researchers a forum in which they can shed light on the nature of their research in a context understandable by the layman, they can showcase their achievements and how it will benefit the general population, be that local, regional or global.

At the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN), physicists and engineers use the world’s largest and most sophisticated scientific instruments to study the simplest forms of matter. This facility most recently drew worldwide attention as the grounds of the recently discovered Higgs boson, a discovery that won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics.