Sheikh Hamdan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, has honoured the winners of the "Higher Education and Scientific Research Smart Applications Award" in its first edition 2013-2013, last Thursday in a ceremony held at the new Ministry building. The ceremony opened with an address by Saif Rashed Al Mazroui, Assistant Under-Secretary for Institutional and Support Services in the Ministry, where he congratulated the participating teams on their accomplishments, thanked them and urged them to participate in future editions. Sheikh Hamdan had endorsed the results of the award on the tenth of this month, which he launched in June 2013, with the aim of providing higher education and scientific research services in accordance with the highest international standards through upgrading of educational services and support for the continuous improvement and development in the higher education sector in the country. The winning teams who took the first three places were honoured with certificates of appreciation for all the team members, in addition to monetary rewards. The three teams' supervisors, managers and representatives of the participating universities were also honoured. The winning teams in the top three places were all from Khalifa University, and they achieved the highest marks in relation to the evaluation criteria, namely; ease of use, creativity and innovation and efficiency and effectiveness. The winning applications covered several services such as certificates attestation, scholarships abroad, search for academic institutions and programmes and "Asaal Fahim" service. Al Mazroui added that other participating teams will be honoured later in addition to honouring the jury. Commenting on this achievement, Dr. Mohammed Al-Mualla, Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Khalifa University, said, "we are very proud that our students took the first three places in this national contest with their excellence and distinctiveness which, if anything, shows the high academic level the Khalifa University offers its students, which is reflected in the culture of research and innovation in all our programmes at the Bachelor's, Master's and doctoral levels. "We thank the supervisors of the contest from the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research for providing an opportunity for our students to participate and we hope to continue cooperation and that our students will continue to excel as always to be leaders of the future."