The project aims to establish a center of excellence for research and training in construction and environment at Damascus University. Other universities in Syria, Aleppo University and Tishreen University, will participate in the project to provide feedback and to share the experience of the establishment of this center with the intention to develop similar projects at their universities. This center has a set of research themes and training areas that relate to the major problems that face the construction sector in Syria. The project will enhance competence of participating academic staff in Syria through training them on research-related skills as research philosophy, strategy, and methodological approach, as well as technical writing, quantitative and qualitative methods, presentation skills, formulation of research questions, and ethical codes for research conduction. These skills will be disseminated to other institutions in Syria through the presence of contact persons of other Syrian national universities in the consortium. The project will also empower academic staff at Damascus University with research facilities and research resources. Damascus staff will have to develop course modules and training modules line with matrix approach to course development in the future. The project will examine the progression of research skills for trained staff by encouraging them to develop research bids and proposals and to submit research papers to journals and conferences. The project outputs and outcomes are the following:1. Evaluation and finalization of suggested research themes2. Development of Modules for Background Building for research themes3. Development of short training courses for conducting research4. Development of Tentative proposals within each research area5. Evaluation and finalization of the suggested training areas6. Development of training courses for each area