Sharjah Government awards AED2 million Faya research grants to five international universities

SHARJAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 20th May, 2026) The Government of Sharjah has officially announced five international awardees of the prestigious Faya Research Grant Programme. Leading universities in the UAE, UK, US, Germany, and Spain have been selected following a rigorous scientific review process that attracted 49 applications from reputable universities and research centres across four continents.

Launched following the inscription of the Faya Palaeolandscape on the UNESCO World Heritage List, the AED2 million programme was established to advance scientific research into early human occupation, migration, environmental change, and adaptation in Arabia through long-term archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigation.

Administered by the World Heritage Office at the Sharjah Archaeology Authority (SAA) in coordination with the Faya World Heritage Property Scientific Committee, the programme comprises one long-term research grant, six short-term scientific grants, and a dedicated mentoring fellowship track for Emirati archaeologists. Together, the selected projects are expected to generate major new environmental, archaeological, genetic, and geological datasets that will strengthen international understanding of human history in southeastern Arabia and reinforce Faya’s growing importance within global human evolution research.

Announcing the selected projects, Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, Ambassador of the Faya World Heritage Property, said, “The quality and diversity of applications received from across multiple regions reflects the growing scientific importance of Faya within international archaeological research. The selected projects were chosen for their methodological rigor, originality, and long-term scholarly value, as well as their ability to strengthen the scientific foundations of the World Heritage Property while contributing to broader global research questions related to human adaptation, migration, and environmental change”.

“These projects reflect the level of scholarship and intellectual ambition that a World Heritage landscape of this importance deserves. By bringing together expertise from multiple disciplines and regions, the Faya Research Grant Programme is helping establish a long-term scientific framework through which new knowledge about human adaptation, migration, and resilience can continue to emerge from Arabia,” she added.

The programme’s flagship long-term grant was awarded to Professor David Thomas of the University of Oxford for the project FAYA-PAST: Faya Palaeolandscape Analysis and Spatio-Temporal Evolution.

The three-year project will establish the first comprehensive environmental framework for Jebel Faya across the past 200,000 years using satellite analysis, ground-penetrating radar, field survey, and advanced dating techniques. By reconstructing how environmental conditions evolved across southeastern Arabia over time, the research aims to explain how early human populations adapted to extreme arid landscapes and dispersed beyond Africa.

The project is being conducted in collaboration with Professor Mohammed Y. Ali of Khalifa University and Dr Julie Durcan of the University of Oxford. In addition to high-resolution datasets and peer-reviewed publications, the project includes field training and international laboratory placements for Emirati students.

At the Mohamed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dr Mohamed Almarri, alongside co-investigator, Professor Simon Underdown, Oxford Brookes University, UK, will lead (FAYA-GENOME) Ancestry, Kinship, and Adaptation: A Paleogenomic Reconstruction of the Faya Palaeolandscape.

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The 2026 project is the first study of its kind in Neolithic Arabia, combining ancient DNA from burials with sedimentary DNA to map the ancestry, kinship, and social structures of early communities. It will also shed light on ecosystem change through analysis of human remains and sedimentary DNA to reveal how the surrounding environment changed over time, including shifts in plant and animal communities during major climate transitions.

Professor Lesley A. Gregoricka of the University of South Alabama will lead the (FAYA-ISCOSCAPE) Faya Strontium Isoscape Project: Human Mobility in the Faya Palaeolandscape. The project in 2026 will establish the first regional strontium isotope baseline for southeastern Arabia, creating a scientific framework capable of distinguishing local from non-local individuals and offering new insights into how Neolithic populations adapted to and moved through desert landscapes.

For 2027, Faya Short-Term Grants, the Faya Scientific Committee awarded to Dr Nuria Sanz Gallego of the University of Tubingen for (FAYA-GLOBAL) Human Evolution, Migration, Adaptation and PalaeoScapes Platform for the Faya Palaeolandscape. The project will establish an international cooperation platform linking Faya with key UNESCO-aligned sites across Africa, enhancing the site's global visibility within the international heritage science framework. It will develop a shared strategy and comparative research framework to link Faya to broader questions about early human movement and adaptation, closely aligning with major international initiatives in human evolution research, including UNESCO’s Human Evolution: Adaptations, Dispersals and Social Developments (HEADS) programme.

Meanwhile, Dr Andrea Guerrero of Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia will lead the other project slated for 2027, titled, (FAYA-LITHIC) Lithic Landscapes of Sharjah: A Multiscalar Geological Framework for Jebel Faya. The project will develop the first detailed geological framework linking stone resource distribution to early human behaviour at Jebel Faya between 210,000 and 80,000 years ago through advanced digital mapping, geochemical analysis, and spatial modelling.

Alongside the scientific grants, the Faya Grant Scientific Committee has awarded the Faya Mentoring Fellowship Grants to three exceptional young Emirati heritage professionals — Amina Alsumaiti, undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, Art History and Archaeology; Sara Alkabi, graduate of Sorbonne Abu Dhabi (2025), Archaeology with minors in Mathematics and Near and middle Eastern Civilisations (2022-26); and Obaid AlZaabi, graduate student of Engineering Management at the University of Sharjah (2024-26), — were selected for the Faya Mentoring Fellowship Grants.

The programme provides a structured international training pathway that includes workshops, curated study visits to major Upper Palaeolithic sites and museum collections in Germany, and extended field training at the World Heritage site of Hohle Fels Cave, Swabian Jura under academic supervision of Tubingen University. The fellowship concludes with applied archaeological fieldwork at the Faya UNESCO World Heritage Property, enabling participants to translate international research experience directly into local archaeological practice and site stewardship.

The selected projects will commence between 2026 and 2027 and are expected to produce peer-reviewed publications, digital datasets, comparative regional studies, and long-term scientific resources that will support future archaeological research and heritage management at Faya for years to come.