The UAE's citizens and residents have been provided with free access to a trusted library of information via Oxford Reference, featuring a range of dictionaries, award-winning encyclopaedias and scholarly works.

Access to this substantial online knowledge bank is available from today, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, between the Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities, DPM, and Oxford University Press, OUP, a department of the University of Oxford and the most extensive university press in the world.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Mubarak Obaid Abdullah Khamees Al Dhaheri, Under-Secretary of the DPM, and Bashar Adib, Regional Sales Manager of OUP for the Middle East and Africa.

As part of the 'Sharing Knowledge' initiative, the MoU aims to offer information and knowledge, free of charge for government employees, strategic partners and the whole UAE community, via a digital library until March 2018. The e-library facility will be available under this agreement to any entity within the UAE.

Al Dhaheri said, "The signing of the MoU will provide closer and more valuable cooperation between government departments, the UAE and Oxford University Press.

"We acknowledge the importance of providing scientific and academic references to all school and university students, as it forms the basis of any scientific research. We thank the leadership of the UAE for such noble directives and initiatives to sustain the free flow of knowledge."

Adib said, "We are excited to partner with the DPM to make an extensive knowledge bank available to the UAE population. Here in the UAE, there has always been great potential among its young men and women to help shape the future in scientific research, which has always been integral to building and maintaining progress in the country. Under the astute leadership of its rulers, the UAE is well on its way to achieving this goal."

The academic content is available in more than 20 subject areas, covering key disciplines such as humanities, social sciences, medicine and law.