Update on KAUST

The King Abdulla University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is moving along on its development plans (see King Abdulla University of Science and Technology - a paradigm for the 21st century? June 5, 2007).  In January, KAUST got off to an excellent start with the appointment of Shih Choon Fong as its first President.  Dr Shih is currently the very highly regarded President of the National University of Singapore, and will assume the presidency of KAUST next December.

KAUST is not waiting for its president to arrive, however, before implementing its plans to build by creating partnerships with the leading educational institutions in the world.  Although some of the agreements took some time to actually finalize, previously announced partnerships and dates are:
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutite (June 15, 2007)
Institute Francais de Petrole ( June 22, 2007)
National University of Singapore (June 27, 2007)
IIT Bombay (July 16, 2007)
American University in Cairo (September 5, 2007)
Technische Universitat Munchen (January 24, 2008).
Each of these agreements describes partnerships in specific areas of research and education, with financial arrangements that vary to meet the circumstances.

In the last two days, three very significant new partnership arrangement with American universities have been announced.  On March 4, agreements with the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) and Stanford University were announced, and on March 5, an agreement with the University of Texas at Austin was announced.  It is reported that Stanford and UCB will each receive almost $30M over 5 years as part of this partnership.  Of that, $10 will be for participating departments, $10M will be for joint research at the institutions involving new KAUST faculty, $5M will be for joint research at KAUST, and $3M-$4M will be for administrative costs.  Stanford and UCB will each have responsibilities in identifying and helping to recruit faculty for KAUST, and in hosting KAUST faculty until the KAUST campus opens.  The conditions at UT are more or less the same.

All in all, a very impressive list of partner institutions.  The quality and the international visibility of each of them helps to assure that KAUST will indeed begin to develop following international norms for access and freedom of inquiry.