The United Arab Emirates Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science (UAEREP) is a global research initiative offering a grant of US$5 million over a three-year period to be shared by up to five winning research projects in the field of rain enhancement.
The cloud-seeding operations were initiated in the late 1990s in the UAE. By early 2001 these operations were being conducted in cooperation with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, USA, the Witwatersrand University in South Africa and the US Space Agency, NASA. [1]
The United Arab Emirates Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science is an initiative of the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Presidential Affairs and was launched at the beginning of 2015 under the patronage [2] of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs. It is managed by Alya Al Mazroui and overseen by the National Center for Meteorology (United Arab Emirates) [3] (NCMS) based in Abu Dhabi. [4]
Four pathways have been identified to achieve those goals:
The research grant is awarded on a yearly basis. The Program invites innovative research and technology proposals from domestic or foreign, public or private, non-profit or for-profit organizations and, in some cases, individuals. [6]
All of the proposals selected are subject to five criteria:
The program had the following two cycles.
The first cycle of the Program was announced on 20 January 2015. All awardees were selected by a merit review process [8] and announced in January 2016. [9] The awarded research projects were selected based on their ability to promote scientific understanding in the field of rain enhancement science and further develop related technologies, applications, and operations, as well as build capacity.
The three prize-awarded scientists leading the research teams that share this cycle's grant of US$5 million are:
In 2015, in total, 325 scientists and researchers affiliated to 151 organizations applied to the Program. These researchers, drawn from 34 countries around the world, cooperated as scientific teams on the submission of a total of 78 pre-proposals. [10]
Announced on January 19, 2016, the Program received 91 pre-proposals [11] from 398 scientists, researchers, and technologists affiliated to 180 institutes from 45 nations. [12] Candidates from 45 countries — including scientists and researchers from 15 new countries such as Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, Mexico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sweden, and Turkey, sent proposals to the Program.
After a month-long initial review process, 15 pre-proposals have been shortlisted. [13]
on 17 January 2017 The Second Cycle awardees were selected due to their innovative technologies, applications, and operations towards the scientific understanding in the field of rain enhancement science. The awarded scientists include [14] [15]
The awardees of the Third Cycle of the Program were announced on 17 January 2018, during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW). [16] The awarded research projects were led by researchers from Russia, USA and China. Selected from a highly competitive field, the awarded projects featured a range of innovative new scientific and technological approaches to rain enhancement.
The three prize-awarded scientists leading the research teams that share the Third Cycle's grant of US$5 million are:
Reflecting the Program's outstanding success and growing international status as a hub for rain enhancement research, the Third Cycle call for research proposals led to 201 pre-proposal submissions being received, representing 710 scientists and researchers affiliated to 316 institutions spread across 68 countries on five continents. [23]
