RESEARCH AT KAUST
KAUST has set aggressive and ambitious goals to develop a robust and diverse research
capacity on the campus that is closely linked to the global-research community and
to its own graduate-education programs.
To develop this capacity, KAUST is designing the academic and research core with
campus labs and research facilities in flexible building "shells" that
permit faculty to customize the space to their research.
Researchers: Involved in Lab Design
One of the most exciting and unique aspects of research at KAUST is the opportunity
for University Research Centers and their principal investigators to guide the design
and development of specialized labs.
KAUST is creating each Institute building with interchangeable modules for the different
laboratory types and research associated with them, including a mix of administrative
offices, faculty offices, labs, high bay and specialty labs, and laboratory services.
Research Institutes: A New Model
Importantly, while the research buildings may be designated, for example, the "Materials
Science and Engineering Building," the
Research Institutes at KAUST will be virtual, not physical, entities. No
building will be dedicated to a single Institute, and faculty appointed in any Institute
will be able to occupy space in more than one building.
A typical Research Center at KAUST will include a multi-investigator, multi-laboratory,
often industry-collaborative group of professorial faculty, research scientists
and engineers, post-doctoral researchers, visiting researchers (including resident
and visiting scientists from industry) and administrative and technical staff.
Primary Goal: Research Collaboration
Research activities at KAUST will be collaborative and flexible.
In addition to multi-investigator Research Centers, KAUST will house single-investigator
labs led by distinguished King Abdullah Professors.
The applied-research focus of the Research Institutes and Centers will be balanced
by junior and senior faculty with appointments in the basic sciences – mathematics,
chemistry, physics, statistics and biology.
KAUST also plans special Research Centers or field stations that are not affiliated
with a particular institute.
The Marine and Ocean Research Center: On October 22, 2007, KAUST and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) formalized their research partnership by signing a contract to foster research of coral reefs, ocean circulation, and fisheries along Saudi Arabia’s coast in the Northern Central Red Sea.
WHOI experts will work with KAUST to design and maintain this facility, which will
provide a base of operations for scientific research conducted in the Red Sea. The
collaboration with the WHOI is critical to KAUST, not only because research of the
Red Sea ecology is relatively new, but also because the coastal campus of KAUST
will include 19 million square meters of protected marine sanctuary. The agreement
signed by WHOI and KAUST creates three initial areas of research at KAUST: coral
reefs; coastal hydrography; and fisheries and aquaculture. WHOI also will provide
consultation on the design of the main lab facility, the seawater lab facility and
the seaside dock facility for the KAUST Marine and Ocean Research Center.
View highlights of the Red Sea marine sanctuary on KAUST’s
coastal campus.
The Islamic Science and Technology Research Center:
In addition to conducting original research at KAUST, scholars from around the world
who specialize in this topic will help curate the special collections of digital
and physical artifacts in the KAUST Library and Museum that highlight Islam's leadership
in scientific innovation and discovery throughout history. These collections may
evolve into a world-class repository, making KAUST an international center for this
field of study.
