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The Emirates Scientists Council, ESC, held its second meeting, where it explored ways to facilitate medical research and health-related scientific efforts, and discussed the opportunities and challenges facing the sector in the UAE.
Chaired by Sarah bin Yousef Al Amiri, Minister of State and ESC Chairwoman, the meeting saw the Council introduce new practices to support health-related research activities, in addition to creating new policies to regulate the industry. Members discussed various scenarios for developing the UAE’s healthcare sector, exploring the role that genomics research can play in that regard.
"People’s happiness and wellbeing is top priority for our government," she added. "The UAE is committed to building capacities and facilitating research, both of which are key for developing our healthcare sector. With that in mind, the Council always seeks to introduce best practices to catalyse scientific research and upgrade the medical sector as a whole."
Al Amiri praised the generous initiative of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, to launch the Open Labs initiative, saying: "The platform is a significant addition to the scientific research efforts in the UAE; it empowers researchers and scientists, and grants them access to cutting-edge, highly equipped laboratories."
"The Council has determined a set of mechanisms and policies to ensure that research in the medical sector is continuously developed," she explained, "these include funding, intellectual and property rights protection laws, quality criteria for medical research institutions, measures to systematically and scientifically evaluate research projects, and evaluation criteria for research outputs and researchers’ performance."
"These policies strive to ensure that the research projects carried out across the UAE are in sync with the requirements of the rapidly developing healthcare sector, which is a prerequisite for increasing productivity and refining the quality of research output," she concluded.
On the same note, the Council adopted plans to prepare a comprehensive report that evaluates the state of research in the science and technology sector, and studies the effectiveness of this research and the feasibility and applicability of its outputs. The report and its supporting indicators are expected to quantify knowledge production in the UAE.
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