Doha • A project on developing robots that can effectively communicate with the Arab societies is among the 47 research proposals that will receive grants from the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) of the Qatar Foundation.
QNRF yesterday announced the winning entries of its National Research Priorities Program (NPRP), that awards grants worth a total $25m. The awards are divided among 47 research proposals from 10 institutions, with collaborative partners from across the world. The grants are spread over three years, with a total $10m being awarded in the first year.
Some of the other winning proposals focus on men’s and women’s place in Qatari families, images of Muslim women in translated media sources in the Middle East, mental disorders among Qatari population and migrant families in Qatar.
Dr Majd Sakr, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar (CMUQ), while explaining his proposal on human-robot interaction, told The Peninsula: “Robots in developed countries were designed to communicate with the cultural setting of their respective societies. The thrust of our research is to develop an effective communication language for robots suitable in the Arab societies. If robots fail to effectively interact with people, the huge amount spent on the technology would be wasted.” The research project is supported jointly by CMUQ and the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg.
Launched last year through a special government funding, QNRF aims to advance knowledge and education by supporting original and competitively selected research. The NPRP awards have been given in a wide range of disciplines ranging from engineering to health to the humanities.
Through the programme, QNRF seeks to address key national, regional and global needs and pursue research opportunities for which Qatar may have a comparative advantage. “We were overwhelmed by the interest in NPRP and the caliber of the proposals submitted. There are 10 winning institutions but because of collaboration a total of 33 institutions from Qatar, the region and the world will be taking part,” said Dr Abdul Sattar Al Taie, the QNRF Director.
A total of 206 proposals were submitted for the awards. Following pre-screening, 175 proposals were independently reviewed by three to six “peer reviewers” and a total of 47 proposals were then awarded.
The grants are given to only institutions or organisations. The research may be conducted under the auspices of academic institutions, business or governmental or non-governmental organisations. Awards up to $250,000 for up to three years will be made to successful applicants.
The research projects cover a wide range of subjects under six categories- computer science and information technology, health and life sciences, education, public policy and management, arts and humanities and social sciences.
The winning proposals also include: Investigation and impact of Education for a New Era classroom and school processes on student outcomes; A Middle East Research Consortium; The role of Qatar University Core Curriculum Programme in improving students’ academic performance; Automated tools for effective team coordination in emergency response; Modeling control of infectious diseases, A holistic approach to sustainable use of seawater for Process Cooling; Development of a computational groundwater model for Qatar, Novel biodetection methods; and Scalable wireless multimedia in Qatar.
