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Research

RESEARCH PARK & INNOVATION CENTER

Unique Facilities Access and Technology Transfer

Over the past few decades, an increasing number of universities and governments have begun developing programs to foster applied R&D "opportunity zones." These research parks cover the full range of commercial activities, from computers to communications, and health sciences to robotics.

KAUST's own Innovation Center will be located within the KAUST Research Park and will serve University-sponsored activities, including support for startups and established company "skunk works," where new product development occurs outside corporate facilities.

Positioned for Success

KAUST is uniquely positioned to succeed in promoting technology transfer from the academic setting to the private-sector. It has a focused mission; the financial capacity to attract researchers in fields that are susceptible to rapid technology transfer; state-of-the-art and readily adaptable facilities; and the opportunity to offer the use of these facilities at below-market rates.

KAUST is designed to allow for ease of collaboration when it is advantageous to multiple parties, or can be separated when needed to protect intellectual property rights. Situating commercial research and development activities on campus will add to KAUST a vital, critical mass of population and sense of progress, energy and intellectual vitality.

KAUST has a focused mission; the financial capacity to attract researchers in fields that are susceptible to rapid technology transfer; state-of-the-art and readily adaptable facilities; and the opportunity to offer the use of these facilities at below-market rates.

Focused on Industrial Collaboration

The major development strategy for the Innovation Center will be industrial collaboration with Saudi Arabian companies, such as Saudi Aramco, SABIC, SWCC, and other companies whose research agendas intersect with the research focus of KAUST. Industrial collaborators may include large multinational corporations and startups.

The Research Park's first phase will consist of several buildings that will be available for the academic opening in the fall of 2009, and will be composed of the initial facilities and offices of the Innovation Center and Research Park.

These buildings will be located strategically at the south end of the primary academic corridor of the campus, providing a creative and high-quality transitional use of space between main research buildings and the campus core, the Research Park, and the site of a future off-campus Conference Center.