Dh150,000 grants announced to study UAE's social issues

The Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy is making grants available as part of its Social Development Research Competition to study a variety of social issues.

ABU DHABI // Grants of up to Dh150,000 will be awarded to prospective researchers who express an interest in creating an archive of statistics and reference material for the UAE.

The grants, announced yesterday, will be allocated by the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy as part of their Social Development Research Competition.

The competition is open to candidates with "original" research ideas on social issues including family cohesion, parenting, cultural and historical heritage, demographic trends, international awareness and health-related behaviour.

Dr Sabha al Shamsi, the senior executive adviser for the education programme and the acting senior executive adviser for social development at the Emirates Foundation, said: "The insight gained from these research projects will help a spectrum of groups, including policy planners and decision makers, as well as nationals themselves to identify, analyse and confront current social challenges as well as those that might occur in the future.

"The winners will be encouraged to publish their research findings and present them at conferences. This will assist the nation's efforts to promote a supportive environment for all Emirati citizens."

The announcement comes only a week after the foundation declared it would be giving similar monetary assistance to those wanting to conduct education research.

Aiming to attract PhD students who were willing to support improvements to national education, Dr al Shamsi said they were hoping to increase the "knowledge pool" surrounding teaching methods for K-12 and high school students.

The social development grants carry the same aim - to increase the amount of empirical information available to Emirati society.

Applications will be evaluated by an advisory committee for each sector, with preference given to the proposals that have the potential to deliver effective policy recommendations as a result of their findings.

The deadline for applications is April 14. They can submitted online at www.emiratesfoundation.ae.