KAUST's "greatest institutional challenge in fulfilling its vision" as it continues to grow and develop, remarked Dr. Ernesto Occhiello, Executive Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), will be to "become firmly rooted in the local community: an avenue of future economic growth in the Kingdom— thereby fostering the realization of the founder's dream."

SABIC chose to site its new Center for Research and Innovation (CRI) at the KAUST Research Park, attracted by the University's personnel, the state-of-the-art core laboratories, and in anticipation of the rich recruiting ground the student body will provide. "In fact, organizations rarely distinguish themselves by their facilities," explained Dr. Occhiello, "but a skill set takes many years to build. We began our partnership aware of the caliber of the faculty and staff and the culture of the organization." By 2015 SABIC aims to recruit over 150 exceptional scientists in diverse disciplines to the new center.

They will live and work on campus, aiming to engage the broader KAUST research community in horizontal research in which integrative research questions are investigated by interdisciplinary teams. The relationship promises to be reciprocal.

SABIC has made a huge investment in the CRI, which will focus on disruptive technologies – defined as new technologies that unexpectedly displace established ones. In addition, it will provide $1M annually to support postdoctoral researchers with non-restricted grants and is generously funding a new Chair in Polymer Science. Some of the fellowships funded seem, at first glance, outside SABIC 's obvious areas of commercial interest. For example, data-mining in computational biology which Dr. Occhiello likens to identifying the "needle in the haystack: the exception in the broad sea of conformity." He justifies this diversification believing that biological approaches may supersede chemical processes in the future and looks to "the best possible leveraging of the investment SABIC is making."

The company will fund several KAUST researchers directly to focus on some of the challenges that it faces including solar energy, separation, catalysis, bio renewables, and functional materials. Should a KAUST researcher develop a suitable technology, he or she will personally be eligible for a Commercialization Challenge Award of up to $1M from SABIC at the point of commercialization.

Meanwhile the company seeks to identify and nurture talent early on by offering internships to postgraduate students, facilitated by the SABIC CRI presence at the Research Park. SABIC is currently working alongside University scientists in catalysis, water reuse, flexible electronics, and carbon sequestration using algae and has already employed several KAUST postdocs and several graduate master's students.

President Shih thanked the Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mohamed H Al-Mady for "SABIC's efforts to strengthen the collaboration between the institutions in support of King Abdullah's bold vision for research, education, innovation, and economic development.