US universities bag $60mn Saudi deal

by Lynne Roberts on Thursday, 06 March 2008

RESEARCH LEADER: The $10 billion King Abdullah University of Science and Technology will not discriminate on the basis of gender, religion or race.Stanford University and UC Berkeley are to help develop a major campus at Saudi Arabia’s $10 billion King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), according to US press reports.

The US colleges will each receive almost $30 million to help the flagship research institute hire 60 faculty staff and create graduate-level courses in six disciplines for its planned opening in September 2009.

Stanford is to help design and built the university’s departments of maths and computer science, while UC Berkeley will focus on mechanical engineering.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanford and Berkeley will each receive $10 million earmarked for the participating departments, $10 million for joint research in the US and $5 million for collaborative research conducted at Kaust.

Berkeley will also receive $3.3 million to cover administrative costs, while Stanford will get $4.4 million, the paper said.

According to Berkeley administrators, the contract was agreed on the understanding that women would be treated equally at the university. Faculty staff at Berkeley’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering had reportedly declined to join over concerns about academic and personal freedom.

Kaust, located on the Red Sea at Thuwal, north of Jeddah, will accept students of both sexes and will not discriminate on the basis of religion or race, officials said.

The university, which has one of the world’s largest educational endowments from the pocket of King Abdullah, aims to be a global leader in research into energy, environmental sciences, computing, mathematics and engineering.

Similar deals with a further three US universities are expected to be announced later this week.

UC Berkeley plans Saudi university deal'Secret talks' with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology raise discrimination concerns.