Quarterly Report FY20 Q1: Center of Excellence for Water

The project aims to create a Center of Excellence for Water at Alexandria University in Egypt, with a total allocated budget of $30 Million USD over a period of 5 years. The project is managed by The American University in Cairo (AUC) and has multiple partnerships and stakeholders, including universities, public institutions, and industries. During the reporting period from October 1st to December 31st 2019 (FY20Q1), several activities were carried out by the project team. The project team participated in the Cairo Water Week, the largest Water event in Egypt, organized by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. A full revision of the project activities was held with the participation of Alexandria University, and the second "all Egyptian Partners Meeting" and "All US Partners Meeting" were held. Component I: Governance of CoE focused on revising the activities of the governance pillar, drafting MoUs, and finalizing the call for "Governance workshop". The project team developed basic reporting templates for the center in Alexandria, guided by experiences from WSU. The team of Alexandria University started developing the "financial bylaws" of the Center in Alexandria, which will allow the center in Alexandria to have its own bank account independent from the university account. Component II: Instructional Innovation and Curriculum Development involved revising the pillar's activities and timeline, conducting a needs assessment, and launching the Learning Management System Workshop's call for proposals. The draft report of the "Needs Assessment" campaign was produced and distributed to all partners for feedback. Component III: High Quality Applied Research focused on revising the pillar's activities and timeline, analyzing and reviewing data collected in the research needs and capacity survey, and preparing for the March Research Roadmap workshop. The documentation for the online grant solicitation, application, review, and management process continued to be developed. Component IV: Exchanges, Training and Scholarship involved revising the pillar's activities and timeline, analyzing and reviewing data collected in needs assessment, and finalizing the selection procedure for the LMS workshop. The announcement for the Governance workshop was launched. Component V: Sustainability focused on participation in the Cairo Water Week 2019 and planning for the second Public Private Partnership (PPP) workshop to be held at Ain Shams University on January 9, 2020. The Center of Excellence for Water organized a full day session at the Cairo Water Week 2019, in replacement to the organization of the Annual conference for the project. The project team continues to develop the basic reporting templates for the center in Alexandria, and the team of Alexandria University is developing the "financial bylaws" of the Center in Alexandria. The documentation for the online grant solicitation, application, review, and management process is expected to be finalized and approved by the RPC in Q2 of FY2020.