Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCU-Q) recognizes the ever-present and evolving role of design and its related disciplines by supporting pure, applied, and creative research.

• drives innovations in design and education
• enriches local knowledge 
• develops and diversifies human and economic capacity within Qatar 
• promotes fluid interaction between Qatar and the international research community 
• has the potential to yield tangible benefits for Qatar's vision of the future

Undergraduate Research Experience Program grants have been awarded to VCUQ faculty/student research teams by the Qatar National Research Fund for such projects as:

• 'Residential Lighting Design' - what are the guidelines and criteria for lighting a residence?
• 'Khuyut Arabiyya (Arabian Threads): Producing Contemporary Arabic-Islamic Fashion in Qatar' - in order to be able to judge the relevance and impact of establishing a fashion institute for new forms of Islamic dress for both men and women, researchers are studying what people wore in the past and what they wear now. This entails looking at published literature on the subject, historic photographs and the collections of the Qatar Textile Museum
• 'Al-Khatt and Al-Kitabah: Arabic Typography at the Mercy of Technology' - a proposed set of rules to regulate the various ways in which letters connect when typed using digitized typefaces
• 'The Semantics of Color for Qatar's Population' - what values and meanings do various colors have within the profile of the population of Qatar?