The Research Council (TRC) has opened applications for submitting pre-proposals for projects addressing the current COVID-19 pandemic, in line with the government efforts, for the new COVID-19 Research Program, with the deadline being Saturday, 4 April 2020.

Interested applicants can visit the COVID19- Research Program on TRC’s electronic portal through (https://rims.trc.gov.om) to find out more about the required details. Interested applicants should fill in the application form, and only shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a more detailed proposal.

The themes of the COVID-19 pre-proposals can either of a clinical or non-clinical scope. The clinical and public health topics include, but not limited to, clinical presentation, outcomes and laboratory markers, therapeutics, diagnostics, role of telemedicine, psychosocial aspects, and lastly preventive strategies. As for the non-clinical topics, they include, but also not limited to, mathematical modeling, simulation and predictive analytics, emergent tracking and monitoring technologies, artificial intelligence, decision support systems and recommender systems, economic and business impact, e-learning during pandemics (problems and solutions), crisis management, and lastly environmental issues.

The general conditions for submissions are that the Principal Investigator (Pi) should hold a PhD or a Senior Specialist position or higher in the case of medical doctors, the project’s duration is between weeks and up to one year, and the cost should not exceed OMR 20,000 per project with TRC encourages co-sponsorship. The assessment criteria consist of potential impact and expected outcomes, relevance to Oman’s situation, collaboration with other multidisciplinary organizations and institutions, and scholarly tract record of investigators.

As COVID-19 is evolving extremely fast with huge social and economic impact worldwide, proposals with focused, relevant, realistic, and short-term objectives as well as optimal costs will be given priority.