Manama: Shaikha Mouza Bint Nasser, wife of Qatar's Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, has called for the democratisation of scientific research and for a new era of partnership and equality in research.
"We want an innovative and a creative forum, specialising in offering solutions and alternatives and building partnerships," Shaikha Mouza told an audience of Nobel Laureates, experts and researchers at the inauguration of the Qatar Foundation's first Annual Research Forum.
"We want our research projects to assist developing societies to access the ‘research club' with a full membership, not just with an honorary membership or as an observer," she said.
For Shaikha Mouza, scientific research should be based on local knowledge requirements and on meeting the needs of society, "just as education should develop in the local environment instead of being imported or imposed," the Qatari daily The Peninsula reported on Monday.
During the forum 46 research works will be presented, while 96 poster presentations by a selection of researchers who have been granted funds under various research mechanisms of research centres and research partners will be exhibited.
Three Qatar research institutes are being established in partnership with different national stakeholders.
Network of centres
The Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, the Qatar Computing Research Institute and the Qatar Energy and Environment Research Institute, will form a network of centres to address the national needs.
"Through these three institutes, Qatar Foundation's Research Division is making progress in assessing and monitoring research at Education City, working with national and international partners to join research efforts on projects that will make a difference in shaping Qatar's future," Dr Abdul Ali Haoudi, vice-president for Research at Qatar Foundation, said at the forum.
Speaking at a plenary session devoted to biomedical research, Dr Elias Zarouni, former director of the US National Institute of Health, said that inflectious diseases are no longer challenging the world population.
"However, coronary heart diseases have increased dues to [an] increasing elderly population, depression, allergy and obesity," he said as he covered the current trends and challenges in biomedical research.
