Qatar University President, Dr Hassan Al Derham, honours a QU member at the event.
DOHA: The new academic year was inaugurated with the annual convocation address in which Qatar University (QU) President, Dr Hassan Al Derham, highlighted the university’s visions during the coming period and the most important achievements in the past year.
The convocation also included honouring distinguished faculty members, employees and graduates. The event was attended by QU leadership, deans, heads of departments, programme directors, faculty members, staff, students and alumni.
Dr. Al Derham also honoured QU members in various categories — Outstanding Teaching Award, Distinguished Service Contributions for Faculty Members, Merit Award, Media Award, Employee of the Year Award, and Young Alumnus Award.
During his speech, Dr. Al Derham expressed his sincere appreciation to the community of Qatar University whose efforts have brought success to the university in various fields locally, regionally and internationally. He said, “During the 41 years since its inception, the university interacted with its community and contributed to the development of Qatar with its academic and research expertise. The university will keep developing based on the needs of the community, expanding its faculty, academic programmes to support the road to achieving Qatar National Vision 2030.”
Dr. Al Derham noted, “Our university is the largest in Qatar with more than 20,000 students and 40,000 alumni. It houses the largest campus in the country. This is why QU must meet the aspirations of the diverse community in Qatar.”
On QU’s most recent achievements in ranking, Dr. Al Derham, said: “Qatar University has made a significant advancement in the international ranking. QU has been ranked 332 in the QS world university rankings 2019, a 17 position jump from its 2018 performance. The University also improved in the “QS Top 50 Under 50” ranking by one position on its 2018 performance and by 13 positions on its 2016-2017 performance.”
On research, Dr. Al Derham said, “In the academic year 2017-2018, the university has received 80 research projects funded by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF). We have research partnerships with 332 local and international institutions. The University has also succeeded in increasing the number of research papers by 422% between 2010-2017, and the university researchers were able to publish more than 1400 research papers and registered six patents in 2017.”
