Recognizing the importance of research as the way ahead for building the knowledge-based economy and meeting the aspiration on QNV 2030, QU offers a funding program to QU faculty members the main objective is to support the research activities of academic members that make significant contributions to the body of knowledge and further enhance QU global ranking. This funding program will enable high impact research activities and their partnership with industry and government enabling to strength QU research groups.
Funds
High Impact grant (HIG) have funding of QR 600,000 over two years with a maximum budget of QR 300,000 per year. The funding for the second year is subject to satisfactory performance of the first year.
High Impact grants have a higher expectation in terms of team qualifications, and project expected impact, which includes scientific outcomes, capacity building, commercialization, and partnership with industry/government. Only exceptional projects with strong teams and high impact will be funded.
Mechanism: Research Group
High Impact research will be conducted in a research group structure. A research group is a gathering of highly qualified researchers along with junior researchers, graduate and undergraduate students to assure the high quality and sustainability of scientific research. Group activities will be aligned with QU research roadmap and will target critical topics that serve the community in Qatar.
Establishment of high-profile research groups with members from different disciplines is an integral part of the QU Research Roadmap and will target cutting-edge research areas that are strategic to Qatar and serve the community. Research groups will facilitate collaboration by building mixed teams of qualified researchers along with junior researchers and students to ensure capacity building and training of researchers while conducting cutting-edge research.
Goals
- Build capacity in cutting-edge research areas
- Empower the scattered critical research mass in QU to establish clusters of research activities in the university.
- Foster the collaboration between various entities at QU and within Qatar
- Becoming regional leaders by conducting cutting-edge research
- Mentor junior faculty, staff and students to enhance their capabilities.
- Focus on research areas that are strategic to the country and serve the community by helping them to provide solutions to their problems.
- Build collaboration with government and private stockholders ??
- Enhance the local expertise by building collaborations with regional and international partners for knowledge transfer.
Structure
Research groups should have at least three faculty members (from colleges, and research centers), researcher(s), and a number of graduate students. It is preferred that members of the research group have different research disciplines to tackle research challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective. Research groups are encouraged to include high profile international experts as research consultants. Research groups may recruit graduate assistants (GA) students or undergraduate students to serve on the research team. Research centers, colleges, and central lab unit should provide all support needed to research groups in terms of equipment.
Eligibility
- The Lead PI must have a track record of successful research with peer-reviewed journal publications; and experience in leading research teams and managing grants. In case of natural science, agriculture, medical & health sciences and engineering & technology published articles must be indexed in ISI/Web of Science or Scopus. The Lead PI should have published at least 5 indexed journals.
- Lead PI, PIs and QU group members, should be full time fculty Ph.D. holders
- The research group should have at least 3 faculty members with different expertise will be an advantage and should train at least 3 graduate students in 2 years.
- No equipment more than 50,000 QR from the group budget is allowed to be purchased from the allocated fund.
- Research papers produced, as an output should reflect the contribution of the group members. Work needs to be collaborative with contributions from all team members. High impact grant will emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of the research topic and the group members’ background.
- Each research group should provide specific KPI as indicators for its research activities in the proposal. High impact grants should have a minimum KPI of 5 indexed journals. (ISI/Web of Science).
- Research groups are encouraged to have industrial or government partners. Co-funding from external stakeholders is encouraged. High impact grants will only consider research groups with a committed external partner.
