Saudi Arabia announced today that it is developing a world-class graduate research university that will support scientific discovery and human advancement. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) campus will be located along the Red Sea around 50 miles north of Jeddah. It is expected to open in September 2009.

“Innovation and the need for scientific discovery know no international boundaries,” said Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi, as quoted in the press release. Al-Naimi is also KAUST’s chief institutional architect.

KAUST’s academic model is based around four research institutes, each of which will include centers devoted to particular issues. The four institutes include the Resources, Energy and Environment Institute; the Materials Science and Engineering Institute; the Applied Mathematics and Computer Science Institute; and the Materials Science and Engineering Institute.

The new university will have one of the largest university endowments in the world and will be governed by an independent Board of Trustees.

For more information, please visit www.kaust.edu.sa.

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