When the Women in Green Hydrogen – Middle East Chapter launched at ADIPEC 2025, it set out to unite professionals, policymakers, researchers and entrepreneurs, and to give women across the clean-energy value chain more visibility and leadership. Less than a year later, the chapter is taking its most visible step yet: the inaugural Women Advancing the Green Energy Transition Awards 2026.

Led by Women in Green Hydrogen Middle East in collaboration with Ras Al Khaimah Municipality and RAK Energy Summit, the awards will recognise five women whose leadership, expertise and practical contributions are accelerating the green energy transition in the UAE and across the GCC. The awards will be presented at RAK Energy Summit 2026 in Ras Al Khaimah on 26 November 2026, a high-level regional platform for sustainable energy, policy, innovation and collaboration.

Poly is proud to support the initiative together with our partner Women in Green Hydrogen, the global network behind the regional chapter, by publishing and running the awards nomination website. Nominations are open until 23 October 2026.

The Middle East’s clean-energy ambitions, from national hydrogen strategies to gigawatt-scale renewable and green ammonia projects, depend as much on people as on capital and technology. Delivering them takes policymakers, engineers, project developers, financiers, researchers and educators working together, often across borders and disciplines.

Women already play decisive roles across this ecosystem, but their contributions do not always receive public recognition. Many of the most important contributors work behind the scenes: shaping the regulation that makes a project bankable, managing the interfaces of a complex delivery programme, or training the people who will operate new plants. The awards are designed to make that impact visible, explicitly including women whose work has not yet received broad public recognition.

Visibility has a practical purpose. Role models attract new talent into a sector facing real skills shortages, and they show the breadth of expertise the transition needs. As we argued in Talent as a Competitive Advantage, access to skilled, diverse teams is becoming one of the defining factors in how quickly energy projects move from plan to delivery.

The initiative also aims to strengthen collaboration between government, industry, academia and the WiGH network, and to create a respected, recurring platform that can grow with the regional energy transition.