The board of trustees of Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding yesterday announced the launch of the sixth edition of the Award setting June 30, 2020 as the last date for accepting nominations for the edition.
It was announced in a press conference held yesterday at the Forum for Arab and International Relations in Katara and addressed by Dr. Hanan Al Fayadh, the Award’s media consultant. 
The Award, which is a global award supervised by a Board of Trustees, a Steering Committee and independent judging committee, has positioned itself distinctively since its launch in 2015, within the Arab and international cultural scene, trying to reach every year different languages and cultures from over the world, said Dr. Hanan Al Fayadh. 
“There are no changes in the policy or categories of the award or its regulation,” said Al Fayadh, noting that the selection of the languages took into account many factors including experts’ reports, assessment of the spread of the language, geographical location and availability of translated materials from Arabic vice versa and the target language. 
“The award has strongly created awareness among youth and publishing houses and encouraging translation and quality of translation,” she added. 
In regard to limiting the award on social sciences and not including pure sciences and technology, she told The Peninsula that this may need much works, preparations and very specialized and sophisticated assessment system which may not be affordable currently but in the future it could be included when appropriate environment is created. 
Al Fayadh pointed out that the in order to continue enhancing communication between Arab and different cultures of the world, the award in season 2020, has selected Persian language as a second major language, and another five new languages in the achievement category.
The committee concerned selected for the sixth edition of the award this year Persian language as the second major language alongside English and Arabic, with new five languages in the achievement category including Pashto, Bengali, Swedish, Korean and Hausa. 
There are also five categories this year which are: Translation from Arabic into English, Translation from English into Arabic, Translation from Arabic into Persian, Translation from Persian into Arabic, and an Achievement Award. 
The total amount of the Award is $2m divided into two categories (translation awards from/to English and Arabic and from/to Arabic and Persian, plus achievement $1m). The second category which is $1m is allocated for the award of achievement which includes above mentioned five languages. The $200,000 of the achievement award is divided into two subcategories; translation from Arabic, and from one of the five languages into Arabic. Each category can get a maximum of $100,000.
The Award was founded in 2015 with the aim of honoring translators and appreciating their role in building bridges of communication between nations and peoples.
 The award has established an official website for interested people to get further information (www.hta.qa/en). 
The conditions for taking part in the award contest also include that the translation works, for the first category, must have been published five years prior to the announcement date of the award while achievement category is not subjected to time limitation and can be awarded to a set of works/achievements of a lifetime.
Only after five years, any award winner can take part again in the nomination of the award according to the regulations. And, only one translated work is allowed for nominee who must be alive at the time of the nomination while institutions can nominate up to three translated works by three different translators.

SOURCE: THEPENINSULAQATAR