Page 16 - Annual Research Report 2018-19

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THE RESEARCH COUNCIL (TRC) FUNDED

PROJECTS

During the AY 2018-19, TRC introduced a new funding program called “Block Funding Program
(BFP)”, where at the beginning of each academic year, a fund will be allocated for each Higher

Education Institution (HEI) depending on their research performance in the previous year. BFP
Includes Research Grant (RG); (previous called ORG), Graduate Research Grant (GRG)

(previously known as GRSP) and Undergraduate Grant (UG) (previous known as FURAP).

Two calls for submission of proposals were initiated by TRC where call 2018 included faculty
projects only while Call 2019 included faculty and student projects. As part of the program, DU

received around 5000 R.O. as an overhead supportive fund and ~ 26,000 R.O. as block fund

for Call 2018. The fund was allocated based on the previous ORG submissions and utilization
of funds.

The faculty members from each College worked tirelessly and 35 proposals were received by

the Department of Research from all Colleges and the Research centre. The proposals went
through initial screening by the Deputy Vice Chancellor and the Institutional Proposal

Evaluation (IPE) Committee. 6 proposals from each College and 1 from the Research centre

were selected for submission to Call 2018 based on the Research idea, benefit to Oman and
readiness of proposal. 16 proposals were deferred to be submitted for call 2019.

Ongoing Projects

During the AY 2018-19, DU had eight ongoing TRC funded projects by faculty and students.

Open Research Grant Projects

Due to initiation of new funding program, all three ongoing faculty research grants (Table 2)

were completed and final reports were submitted to TRC.

Student Research Grant Projects

During the AY 2017-18, Nine (09) new proposals were submitted for FURAP call # 6 in different

sectors that include Culture, Basic & Social Science, Information & Communication

Technology, Environment & Bio resources, Industry & Energy, Education & Human Resources
and Health & Social Development. Only 4 projects were approved in September, 2019 for
funding by TRC as shown in Table 2.

11 Annual Research Report for AY 2018-19
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