ANNUAL REPORT - The Petroleum Institute

The Petroleum Institute | Annual Report - Academic Year 2011 - 2012
of past agreements. The office also serves
as the central point of contact for all formal
collaboration and contractual agreements
between the PI and any interested party.
These collaborations and agreements cover
internship programs, faculty and student
exchange programs, distance learning
courses, collaborative research agreements,
lab establishment, facility utilization at both
ends, and general cooperative relationships.
Objectives
In today’s world when partners are freer to
share information and expertise in order
to accomplish similar goals, collaborations
with national and international entities are
becoming a necessity. The NIC’s collaboration
programs have been designed to fulfill the
following objectives:
i. Strengthen the ties with local and
international partners
ii. Create a hub of knowledge sharing
between the PI and its partners
iii. Enhance the way we do business, which
is educating engineers and scientists
iv. Build research capacity in areas of
interest
v. Promote diversity of thought in reaching
common goals
III. Highlights for Academic
Year
New Programs
We have created a Summer Research Program
that allows junior and senior Emirati students
to spend a minimum of six weeks in one of our
partner universities conducting research. This
program is designed to evaluate the students
on their attendance, contribution, final report,
and presentation. A grade of a “C” or higher is
required to pass this course.
Structural Changes
Four people are employed in the NIC office: the
director, the administrative assistant, and two
coordinators. Our plan is to recruit a further
coordinator and an admin assistant.
Collaborative Endeavors
The office collaborates internally with the Dean
of Academic Affairs, the Research Director,
the Director of Alumni & Continuing Education
and the Director of Strategic Planning in a
variety of activities focusing on campus life,
research activities, outreach and future plans.
IV. Initiatives and Future Plans
• Establish office processes and
procedures for day to day business and
services.
• Establish a webpage to showcase our
activities.
• Complete collaboration agreements
with various universities and companies
that are currently being evaluated.
The pending partnerships include
Rice University, CUPB, Slumberger,
Honeywell, ABB, and Elsevier.
• Launch a student exchange program at
the undergraduate and graduate level
with partner universities. The program
is targeted to launch in Spring 2013.
• Collaborate with the Continuing
Education Office, A plan is being
developed to involve partner universities
in the delivery of workshops, seminars,
certificate training and distance
learning for engineers in ADNOC and its
operating companies.
V. Summary
The office is proud of its accomplishments and
acknowledges that there is a lot of work ahead.
We plan to improve our current services in the
next academic year and build on our success.
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