KAUST announces inaugural Global Research Partnership center grants

Dr. Frank Press, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and Dr. Jack Breese, a former director at Microsoft Research, served as advisors to the panel.

Award decisions are made by the leadership of KAUST.

About the Global Research Partnership (GRP) and KAUST

The GRP is designed to serve KAUST’s developmental and long-term sustainability needs by establishing strong links between KAUST and the existing global research enterprise. KAUST launched the GRP in August 2007 as a part of its strategy to build the University’s research capacity. The GRP process begins with a broad solicitation of proposals and relies on a competitive, independent peer review to select and fund research carried out at the proposing institution on the basis of quality and relevance to KAUST’s mission.

Under the GRP, there are three main programs: Investigators, which are grants for individual scientists leading small groups of researchers; Centers and Centers-in-Development, which involve multiple investigators; and Fellows, for post-doctoral researchers.

In March 2008, KAUST awarded the first round of its GRP Investigator grants to twelve highly accomplished scientists and engineers from around the world. KAUST expects to announce its grants to Fellows in May 2008.

Also in May, KAUST will host its first gathering of Investigators, Centers, Centers-in-Development and Fellows at the first GRP Technical Symposium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The event will welcome new researchers and scholars to Saudi Arabia in a special forum to establish relationships and collaborations among them and other members of the KAUST network.

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is being built in Saudi Arabia as an international, graduate-level research university dedicated to inspiring a new age of scientific achievement in the Kingdom, across the region and around the globe. As an independent, merit-based institution, KAUST will enable top researchers from around the globe to work together to solve challenging scientific and technological problems. The KAUST global research and education network will support diverse talents both on its campus and at other premier universities and research institutions through collaborative research agreements, grants, and student scholarship programs. The core campus, located on more than 36 million square meters on the Red Sea at Thuwal, is set to open in September 2009. For more information about KAUST, visit http://www.kaust.edu.sa.