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Research

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.

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.

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.