On the International Women's Day, the Deanship of Scientific Research at the Female Section, at Umm Al-Qura University, held the "Enabling Women in Scientific Research" forum. It took place on Thursday, 14 Rajab, 1440 A.H., and included the participation of 23 work papers from different academic disciplines.

The forum was opened by a speech given by Her Excellency Dr. Hanadi Bihairi, the Vice Dean of Scientific Research for Development and Quality, in which she presented the details of scientific research at Umm Al-Qura University, and the statistics of the financial support for research grants for female students from the "Wa`idah [Promising]" program.

Moreover, Her Excellency Dr. Sarah bint Omar Al-Khuli, the UQU Vice President for Female Student Affairs, honored the ceremony by delivering a speech in which she emphasized the need to pay interest to scientific research because of its impact on the rise and advancement of peoples.

The forum discussed the reality of women and the difficulties they face in the fields of scientific research, aiming at fulfilling the Saudi Vision by tackling four themes:

The first theme included the discussion of enabling women in Shari`ah-based, linguistic, social, educational and scientific research by presenting different experiences of researchers from various Shari`ah and Arabic fields; the discussion of the challenges facing the researcher in humanitarian and Shari`ah fields at Umm Al-Qura University; and the development of the proposed solutions to increase the scientific publication adopted in these fields.

In the second theme, the researchers reviewed the reality of women in the fields of medical, technical, engineering and scientific research in the past and present, and their role in keeping pace with development. In addition, they discussed the obstacles facing women in the medical field in order to achieve the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030.

As for the third theme of the forum, it was devoted to the discussion of enabling women in the field of research volunteering and volunteer research. The researchers discussed the importance of the volunteering culture in scientific research, and presented the experience of Umm Al-Qura University in qualifying human cadres in research volunteering. This resulted in the approval of regulatory bylaws for research volunteering, and developing a system for how to calculate working hours for researchers.

Then the forum concluded with the fourth theme, which was devoted to the discussion of enabling women in the field of internal and external research support. The researchers discussed the obstacles facing enabling women in general, and enabling them in Saudi universities in particular, in the development of scientific research. They also discussed the lack of supported research performed by distinguished female researchers globally compared to those performed by male researchers.

To view the sessions schedule and presentations, please click here.