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 .‎