The aim of this program is to advocate research within the medical community. REU has always supported Research in all its ways, either by implementing it in all program’s curriculum, or in providing continuous research educational workshops and symposiums. Most of all, the aim of this program is to provide the applicants with the appropriate research tools, in addition to a ready to publish manuscript within the designated five weeks.
This program provides its applicants all the needed tools to start on their research journey. This is accomplished by several methods. First, the program provides tutorial lectures on all aspects of research and research methodology. In addition to full hands-on training in research related applications that covers referencing, statistics, and meta-analysis, there applications include, EndNote, Open Meta, SPSS, Plagiarism checkers. Furthermore, the applicants are divided into groups based on their specialty and preference and twined with one of REUs exceptional supervisors, where they meet regularly and do an actual miniature research and a manuscript.
This is the fourth consecutive year running; it started in 2018, with 64 applicants and 14 research projects, the next year it grew to 114 and 24 projects. The CORONA year brought with it extra challenges, and it was decided to make the program entirely online, all lectures and research, and it was a success with 164 applicants producing 40 projects. The 2020 applicants were from 20 institutions from both within Saudi Arabia and abroad. This year, 2021, it was again decided to run the program online, the benefits were outstanding, the major is the ability to reach a wider background and institutions. This year the program had many applicants, thus we had to stop accepting early, after reaching the 200 applicant point, although we had a long waiting list, but we will not compromise quality of the program for the quantity of the applicants. Thus, 2021, the program accepted 200 applicants from 22 different institutions, with in the Kingdom and outside too. The Program produced 44 scientific research in three different specialties of dentistry, medicine, and pharmacy. Again, all lectures and hands on training were done on line, and most of the research was done distance too.
