Building a research university in the Arab region

tended the university to be seen as a revival of the old “house of wisdom,” which was a premier institution of learning in Baghdad from the 9 century until the 13th century. Starting as a private library of the fabled Caliph Harun Al-Rasheed, it developed quickly into the 9 century equivalent of a research laboratory and a university. The house of wisdom was the birthplace of algebra water, energy and the environment. Though KAUST is a modern university that shares many of the operational mechanisms of western universities such as faculty evaluation and promotion, degree requirements, and the like, the university has a unique model of operation that deviates from most modern universities in several important aspects: ˲ KAUST shares the old house of wisdom’s model of providing unconditional support to its faculty. Professors who join the university enjoy perpetual annual funding to pursue curiosity-based research. Additionally, research centers create focal points for goal-oriented research to advance knowledge toward solving big and practical problems. Individually or within centers, the and was a milieu where many developments took place in various fields of science and humanities. It was sponsored generously by the Abbasid Caliphate and welcomed any knowledge seeker regardless of ethnic origin, religious beliefs, or sex. Its rise and fall coincide respectively with the start and end of the golden age of the Islamic civilization. The king’s vision was to establish a modern university that selectively picks from the best practices of modern, western universities. The model of the university was inspired by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in terms of its size and focus on STEM. The university’s original research vision sought to focus on four major challenges that face the kingdom (and humanity at large), namely, food, T HE E STA BLIS HM E N T OF King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2009 was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream of its founder, the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. His vision for the university was deeply rooted in the historical and cultural contexts of the Middle East. He in-