Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) and the Doha International Family Institute (DIFI) announced the awardees of the Osra Research Grant at the recently-held Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference 2016 (ARC ’16).
Osra, meaning family in Arabic, is a QNRF-DIFI joint-funded grant that encourages research which can be used to develop a knowledge base on the Arab family.
Research areas included marriage and family structure, parenting, family-work balance, and family laws and practices. The research findings funded under Osra will assist the development of evidence-based policies and programmes to promote the well-being of the Arab family. The initiative aims to unite researchers from all Arab countries under one umbrella to begin identifying strengths and finding solutions to challenges.
Five proposals from Qatar and the wider region were awarded, and included institutions from Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, and Qatar. The topics of these proposals varied from parenting studies to family law to family work balance in different Arab countries. It also included a proposal that aims to study how social preferences are influenced in conflict regions such as
Palestine.
Dr Abdul Sattar al-Taie, executive director, QNRF, said the programme addresses an important area for Arab societies in general and Qatari society specifically.
Noor al-Malki al-Jehani, executive director, DIFI expressed satisfaction with the response of the first cycle of the grant, as well as the diversity of topics addressed.
Osra falls under the Thematic and Grand Challenges Programme of QNRF, which aims to competitively select research projects that address research questions in an identified thematic area.
To qualify for Osra funding, a research project must be led by a lead principal investigator with a doctoral qualification, who has at least three peer-reviewed scientific publications in a relevant field and is residing, and affiliated to an institution, in Qatar or another Arab country.