Since its inception in 1999, the Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences has consistently acted as a motivating force towards promoting the medical services and proved to be a success.

The Award’s driving force was honoring distinguished researchers from all over the world and enhancing the scientific cooperation and liaisons with their counterparts in the UAE. The diversity of the awards categories supports the foundation to fulfil its objective. In this context, the Award set a standardized evaluation system to select the distinct figures in academic and healthcare sectors alongside with medical and humanitarian services.

Through the last 20 years, the Award’s  has expanded its role to reach new scopes aiming at boosting the development in all aspects of the medical field. In 2003, the Award established the Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS), one of a kind in the region.  The center is responsible for founding a database of genetic diseases in the Arab world, and it represents a platform for specialists in the field that helps in enriching their research capacities.

The Award realized the importance of scientific research, a cornerstone for the Medical & Health sciences development.Therefore, it established the Research Center to direct the resources towards the researches that are taking place in the UAE. To complement the research support efforts, the Award launches the “Hamdan Medical Journal”, a platform for publishing the funded projects.

The constant efforts reflect on the foundation’s status and its high scientific credibility and quality of performance, which enable the foundation to initiate many programs for Continuous Medical Education and to establish the proper mechanisms and guidelines that contribute to managing and sponsoring several medical conferences and scientific activities. 

Along its journey, the award has been recognized internationally and attracted reputable names, which indicates the comprehensive insight of H. H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance, who believes in the leading role of the knowledge revolution emerged from advanced researches in the fields of medicine, science, and technology worldwide.