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News
03 Aug 2022
Jordan University of Science and Technology Receives Research Funding from the US National Institute of Health


Jordan University of Science and Technology and the University of California San Diego have received $3 million as research funding from the US National Institute of Health (NIH) for the GEOHealth Hub project.

The project, which is considered the first of its kind in the Middle East region, aims to study the effects of climate change on health in the Middle East and North Africa, build capacity in the field of environmental health, especially with regard to the risks arising from climate change, and create policies that aim at reducing the health effects resulting from climate change.

The President of the University, Prof. Khalid El-Salem, praised the efforts made by the Deanship of Scientific Research and its strenuous endeavor to obtain financial support for research and this proves the efficiency of its researchers and their ability to compete with other researchers from various universities.

El-Salem added that Jordan University of Science and Technology, with regard to the aforementioned project, leads the research aspect in the Middle East and North Africa region, and that the research that received research funding from the American National Institute of Health (NIH) was subjected to a national and global evaluation, and it is the first international project of its kind in the region It brings together the most prestigious universities in America represented by Harvard University, University of California Berkeley and University of California San Diego from the United States of America.

Project Director / Prof. Fayez Abdullah from the Civil Engineering Department at the university, said that winning this project came with the support of the university administration and its consistent provision of all facilities for this project, adding that the project is a cooperative initiative between three American universities (UCSD, Harvard University, and UC Berkeley), and  three universities from the Middle East and North Africa region (Jordan University of Science and Technology, University of Balamand in Lebanon, and Mohammed VI University of Health Sciences in Morocco), and comes in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Prof. Abdullah indicated that the most important expected outputs of the project during its five-year plan are the provision of scholarships to obtain a master's degree in the field of environmental health for about 25 students at Jordan University of Science and Technology, the provision of training grants for students to receive training in American universities, and institutional capacity building through the establishment or activation of a track Environmental health in participating Arab universities in cooperation with American universities, and conducting research in areas related to climate change and health through the participation of university students. In addition to holding an annual conference on the effects of climate change on the health sector and human health, and preparing training programs that include short-term educational lessons in the form of summer courses, workshops, visits to the United States, and virtual webinars to build the capacity of researchers in the region