The vision of the department is to aspire to achieve the highest standards of excellence in research, services to the community, and postgraduate studies in the country.

 

The next five years shall witness the department consolidating and strengthening its current research areas and consultancy services to the community, encourage collaborative and interdisciplinary research. It is also expected to build up its strength in a number of promising research areas, especially those with relevance to the local community.

 

In applied mathematics, it is envisioned that researchers working in modeling of sand and dust transportation, fluid dynamics, and solidifying fluid alloys will join to form a bigger group to be known as the Mathematical Modeling of Environmental, Geophysical and Industrial Problems group. The group will be encouraged to interact with the two other groups on (i) Control Theory, Optimization and Computational Mathematics, and (ii) Dynamic systems. This approach is intended to provide a basis for addressing some practical problems of direct relevance to the community.

 

Pure mathematics research in the department is divided into three categories:

(i) Algebra and discrete mathematics

(ii) analysis; and

(iii) differential geometry.

 

The first two groupings constitute the major activities and it is anticipated that the topics listed earlier will remain the focal points of the pure mathematics research for the immediate future.

Suitable appointments in vacancies may strengthen the pure mathematics group. An aspect to address is the lack of any Omani faculty in this group.

 

The strength of the statistics group lies in the applied statistics side where considerable experience has been gained over the years, by participating in studies on data collected in Oman. Another areas of strength is in stochastic modeling. The department would like to strengthen the already existing areas of research by appointing, whenever possible, more applied statisticians in Environmental, Bayesian statistics, and Biostatistics.

 

The department has so far been able to cope with consulting requests coming into it. However, because of the likely increase in future demand for consulting services, and to better organize and formalize this important service, a director for the consulting center may have to be appointed, with supporting staff, in line with other universities.

 

There are many activities in the country where statistical advice is required. At the national level, there is a Statistical Counseling Committee, which is responsible for coordinating such activities. It is hoped that the University Administration will formally introduce the University’s services to this national committee and fully back the department in its endevours to establish links with government departments that run sample surveys and other statistical work.