With His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, commitment for the UAE to launch the first Arab space mission to Mars as well as the creation of the Mars Science City project, excitement has been brewing for this new frontier on Emirati achievement. Furthermore, the UAE has established its long-term interest in astronautics, as the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai has secured its bid to host the 71st International Astronautical Congress. This next natural step in the nation’s pioneering of aerospace technologies opens up new and exciting R&D opportunities for this sector.
To qualify for the Sandooq Al Watan Research and Development (SWARD) grant, the proposed project must meet the following criteria:
Full Proposal Preparation and Submission
Letter of Intent: Not required
Full Proposal: Applicants must submit a full proposal electronically through researcher.ae. The applicant can download the Proposal Template Here and upload it electronically through the proposal submission platform, researcher.ae.
Required Supporting Documentations:
Budgetary Information Funding scheme:
Proposed projects will only be co-funded by Sandooq Al Watan where a second source of funding has been secured prior to proposal submission.
Anticipated Funding Amount:
The program intends to support a variety of projects in its first phase, with the majority having small budget classifications (AED 200K-500K) or medium classifications (AED 600K-800K). There is limited availability for larger projects (maximum of AED 2 million). Submissions with reasonable budgetary funding expectations will have a greater chance of being selected for grants.
Evaluation Criteria
Proposals received by the submission deadline date will be reviewed by a dedicated scientific review committee. The external review panel will evaluate the proposals based on but not limited to the following criteria:
Pre-Award Process
On the bases of the external review panel’s evaluation and recommendation, suitable projects will be short-listed for funding. The applicant will be informed of the results and will be asked to attend a formal meeting, as a form of a final evaluation, to discuss the project details or to discuss the external review panel’s comments, if any.
Project Awarding and Reporting
Following the confirmation of project’s details with the applicants, Sandooq Al Watan will select the projects to be funded.
For all multi-year projects, the principle investigator or primary applicant must submit quarterly progress reports (some projects might require the submission of more frequent reports). No later than 60 days following the end of the project funding period, the principle investigator must submit a final project report, which includes the project outcomes.
The following are SAW’s primary terms & conditions and some terms will be negotiated with the respective party upon awarding. Parties that choose to submit proposals to the SWARD program must agree to the following terms & conditions: