DOHA: Registration has opened for the Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference 2018 (ARC’18), which will be held at Qatar National Convention Centre from March 19-20, under the theme ‘R&D: Focusing on Priorities, Delivering Impact’.
This year’s conference – the seventh edition of ARC, which is organised by Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D) – will feature expert-led panel sessions and technical presentations related to the four thematic pillars defined in the Qatar National Research Strategy (QNRS): Energy and Environment, Computing and Information Technology, Health and Biomedical and Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities.
The panel sessions will be held on the opening day of ARC’18 alongside a new conference highlight, ‘The Future is Now’, presented by Qatar Science and Technology Park and Singularity University (SU).
It will feature some of the most in-demand speakers from SU – a global community focused on using rapidly-accelerating technologies to solve the world’s greatest challenges – and 20 global start-ups showcasing groundbreaking ideas and products.
On the conference’s first day, the focus of the program will also turn to global competitiveness, with international speakers joining local R&D stakeholders to discuss how to maximize the role of research and innovation in building a sustainable, diversified, and resilient economy in Qatar.
The second day of ARC’ 18 will feature a series of interactive sessions centered on the continuing development and updating of the QNRS – of which QF R&D is the custodian – to ensure it guides Qatar’s research community towards developing solutions that address national priorities and have the potential for commercialization.
Almost 1,000 scientific abstracts, consisting of original research focusing on one of the four ARC’18 pillars, were submitted, with 270 being selected for poster presentation and 55 selected for oral presentation following review by experts.
