In 2015, ADEK launched a World standard competitive research funding program under the name of Abu Dhabi Award for Research Excellence (AARE). As a result of the success of this program, additional competitive research funding programs, the Abu Dhabi Young Investigator Award (AYIA) and the Visiting International Professorships (ViPs), were launched. Up to 2019, over 150 research projects were funded under those programs.
The funding between 2015-2019 supported research across several priority sectors: Life Sciences (Health, Food and Agriculture), Aerospace, Education and Social Sciences, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Material Sciences & Manufacturing, as well as Energy and Environment.
Key achievements of the research and development program over the 5-year period include:
- Establishing a globally respectable and competitive funding platform.
- Fostering collaborations with international partners to identify solutions to locally and globally relevant challenges.
- Building critical mass in HEIs through training a new generation of researchers to advance the knowledge economy of Abu Dhabi.
- Raising the profile of research undertaken across HEIs in the emirate through publishing articles in ranked journals.
- Attracting some of the world’s best researchers to live and work in Abu Dhabi.
Upon the launch of the Ghadan 21 initiative, all the below mentioned research programs moved under ASPIRE.
- Abu Dhabi Award for Research Excellence (AARE)
- Abu Dhabi Young Investigator Award (AYIA)
- Visiting International Professorships (ViPs)
- Virtual Research Institutes (VRIs)
ASPIRE is the technology program management pillar of the Advanced Technology Research Council. ASPIRE will continue to support academic research in areas that are a core priority for the Government of Abu Dhabi. To learn more about the academic programs, please visit the ASPIRE website. For further information, please contact academic.programs@aspireuae.ae.