Al Ain: The United Arab Emirates University hosted a ceremony to celebrate the faculty, students, and administrative staff selected as winners of the Chancellor’s Innovation Awards 2022. H.E. Zaki Nusseibeh, Cultural Adviser to H.H. the President of the UAE and Chancellor of the UAEU addressed the winners and an audience of the University Executive Leadership, faculty, students, and staff of the Academic Colleges, and members of the administrative departments. He said, “The Chancellor’s Innovation Awards underline that innovation is the role of every member of a university community: students, faculty members, and administrative staff. The awards remind and support our community to think deeply about their disciplines and professional occupations, to identify problems and opportunities, and to offer creative solutions that address the challenges and gaps.
He explained the importance of the Chancellor’s Innovation Awards as “the opportunity to affirm the connection between the work of our University and the UAE’s national priorities: renewable energy, transportation, education, health, water resources, space, technology, social innovation, and administrative innovation. We have made awards for innovation in each of these areas”.
He reminded the audience that “the primary mission of a university is to foster original thought. We inculcate the spirit and skills of innovation through our undergraduate programs. Our postgraduate students are required to make enquiries to identify problems and gaps in knowledge and practice, and to make recommendations for change and solutions. Our academic researchers and faculty members are continuously advancing the thresholds of knowledge, developing new methodologies and techniques, and experimenting with new practices. In addition our administration is constantly seeking to improve our efficiency and effectiveness of our organisation, to ensure the highest standards of service. All the community is responsible for innovation and demonstrating the purpose of a university”.
The winners of the Chancellor’s Innovation Awards were selected from a large number of proposals submitted by individuals and teams. The Chancellor thanked all members of the community who participated, saying, “Every individual and team who submitted an entry for the Chancellor’s Awards deserves commendation for their time, effort, and willingness to invest in the innovation mission of the University”. He went on to encourage the further efforts of those who did not succeed on this occasion. “I urge everyone to remember that there is no reward without work and risk of failure, and failure is a necessary part of the learning process towards success. We therefore look forward to the future success of participants who have not yet gained their winning place”.
“Our Award winners today are those who, after a painstaking process of evaluation, have been judged to have best met the Award’s criteria. They have been chosen because their proposals are original, novel, and creative. Many proposals are technically ingenious and complex. Some are simple and neat. All are useful and valuable. All award winners have demonstrated that their innovations will meet real needs, are effective and economical, and have the potential to be applied at scale. The award winners have also shown leadership in making a proposal, and persuading others who are not experts that their innovations work, and that they are worthwhile. We offer our congratulations to them”.
Underlining the importance of innovation, the Chancellor said, “Innovation is written into the Ten Principles that our leadership has set out to guide the development of the UAE in the next 50 years. Innovation is key to attracting investment, it is key to diversification of our economy, it is essential to our future global competitiveness, and it is essential to resolving the complex challenges that every nation in the world faces together. The UAE continues to require people who can critically analyse complex problems, create innovative solutions and take the risk to invest in change. Our government focus on innovation is designed to secure the entrepreneurial success and sustainability of our nation into the future. At the UAEU we now look forward to implementing today’s innovations and to experiencing the benefits that they will bring to us in the future”.
