The UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science concluded a two-day evaluation meeting to finalise the recipients of the second cycle of the program that commenced in January 2016. The finalists will be named at a special ceremony in January 2017 to coincide with the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

The evaluation committee, comprising a 10-member expert panel supported by 16 reviewers, selected the awardees after two days of intensive discussions. In accordance with international best practice, all of the proposals were confidentially examined by the reviewers on the basis of very strict criteria.

Since the commencement of its second cycle in January 2016, the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science has witnessed a widened geographical participation - receiving 91 pre-proposals, representing 398 scientists and researchers affiliated to 180 institutes from 45 countries including academicians from 15 additional countries such as Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, Mexico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sweden, and Turkey.

The second cycle also witnessed a high level of interest from local researchers - with the UAE ranking second for the overall number of pre-proposals submitted this year, right after the United States.

Speaking on the progress of the program, Dr. Abdullah Al Mandoos, Executive Director of the National Center of Meteorology & Seismology (NCMS), said: "The UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science has gained considerable traction in just over a year of its launch, with a significant increase in the number as well as quality of submissions in the second cycle. Over the years, rain enhancement has emerged as one of the most promising fields of atmospheric science and we are proud to play our part in contributing to international efforts in augmenting research on this important issue. The global attention that surrounds this initiative validates the UAE’s leadership in embracing scientific research as a key pillar of the country’s Innovation Strategy."

In May 2016, the Program’s Evaluation Committee narrowed submissions down to a shortlist of 15 research teams from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In accordance with best practices in international scientific competitions, the confidential review process has been structured to protect the identity of evaluators, reviewers and candidates until the process culminates with the awards ceremony in January 2017.

Alya Al Mazroui, Program Manager of the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science, said: "The evaluation committee meeting played a critical role in assessing the merits of each application. All of the winning proposals that were selected were subject to stringent criteria based on a weighted score. The five criteria include: overall scientific and technical merit, significance and innovation; approach; project/delivery plan, milestones and deliverables; investigator/team; required/available resources and budget, and capacity building."

Al Mazroui added: "All applications were required to meet the specified criteria in order to make the list. This was crucially important for the final assessment of each proposal and enabled the committee to make the selection of the grant’s awardees in this cycle."

Dr Richard Behnke, former Head of Geospace Research at the US National Science Foundation, and Chair of the international review committee, said: "The high level of excellence in the scope and scale of the second cycle of the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science has been apparent from the earliest round. Selecting the winners from this set of excellent proposals has indeed been a difficult task. However, we are fortunate to have distinguished researchers from around the world to make the final evaluation of these outstanding international research proposals on rain enhancement. The quality of the proposals in this cycle, and the growing number of participating researchers, holds great promise for the future of this field and for a more water secure world."

Launched in 2015, the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science is currently in its second cycle. The program will announce up to five projects as recipients of a total grant of US$5 million to be awarded over a three-year period at a ceremony during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week in January 2017. Research groups from Japan, the UAE and Germany led by professors Masataka Murakami, Linda Zou, and Volker Wulfmeyer were named awardees of the first cycle during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week in January 2016. 

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