Under the patronage of HE Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Azri, Secretary General for the Education Council, the Oman Research Education Network (OMREN) workshop was inaugurated on December 15th 2012. Organized by The Research Council (TRC), the workshop aimed at reviewing the project strategy to establish a sustainable National Research and Education Network as part of the activation of the national innovation system. The workshop touched upon the collaboration benefits that will enrich the scientific society in the Sultanate, through benchmarking and understanding the best international practices as well as assessing the local technical, financial and operational conditions, in order to choose the best way forward to be applied in the Sultanate.
The establishment of the network comes as part of TRC’s vision to establish a strong infrastructure that helps to develop the research and education in the Sultanate and to work as a foundation stone in building the local research capacity.
Speaking about the project’s ideas, Dr Yaqoub bin Juma Al Raisi, director of Information Technology at The Research Council and the project director said that the project includes a number of direct and indirect objectives. The direct objectives include establishing the network which will provide the users with high speed network and will enable them to communicate with the international researchers and log into the equivalent international networks. Regarding the indirect goal, Dr Al Raisi added, OMREN aims at training the Omani cadres in network administration field and establishing virtual science and research communities and enriching the Omani researchers with the latest research and scientific periodicals besides networking with international researchers and research centers. The project will benefit many sectors such as education, higher education, health institutions, cultural centers, IT and telecommunication centers.
In addition, Dr Al Raisi said that the project passed through four main phases including primary planning and gathering information, studies and international experience in this field followed by the assessment phase to assess the current and future needs of the Sultanate besides designing a roadmap for the project.
Regarding the future plan for the project over the next eight years, Dr Yaqoub mentioned that the foundation of the network will last for three years followed by four years to deliver the service to the relevant departments and in the last year the network application will be increased. The network is expected to cover 120 institutions inside the Sultanate.
