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FM AMCONSUL JEDDAH
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RUEAUSA/DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 JEDDAH 000481 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR STAS FEDOROFF; U/S DOBRIANSKY; U/S HUGHES; 
OES/AS MCMURRY; NEA/AS WELCH; S/P FOR GORDON 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/20/2017 
TAGS: PGOV ECON TNGD TPHY KISL SA
SUBJECT: VISIT OF STAS FEDEROFF TO KAUST GROUNDBREAKING 
CEREMONY 
 
Classified By: Consul General Tatiana C. Gfoeller for Reasons 1.4 (c) a 
nd (d). 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY: The Science and Technology Adviser to the 
Secretary attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the King 
 
SIPDIS 
Abdullah University for Science and Technology on October 21. 
The university is part of a development plan to also include 
a Petroleum Complex and King Abdullah Economic City, with the 
goal of linking industry, commerce, education, business and 
research.  Research will focus on Energy and Environment, 
Bioscience and Bioengineering, Material Science and 
Engineering, and Applied Mathematics and Computational 
Science.  Saudi Aramco will play a large role in the 
development of the coeducational school.  Recruitment of 
future students is now under way internationally.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
BREAKING NEW GROUND 
 
¶2. (U)  Dr. Nina Federoff, the Science and Technology Adviser 
to Secretary Rice (STAS), accompanied by Jeddah Pol/Econ 
Chief, attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the King 
Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) in 
Thuwal on October 21. The university, which has an expected 
completion date of 2009, will be a coeducational 
graduate-level research institution at an estimated cost of 
over twelve billion dollars. It will have one of the ten 
largest endowments in the world, worth more than ten billion 
dodlars. The King,s objective is to make the university a 
lighthouse of knowledge, to serve as a bridge between 
cultures and nations, and to help Saudi Arabia advance within 
the world in the fields of science and technology. 
 
¶3. (U)  The ceremony was attended by King Abdullah; Crown 
Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz; Prince Miteb bin Abdulaziz, 
Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs; Prince Khalid 
Al-Faisal, the Governor of Mecca; and many other princes, 
ministers and senior officials.  The ceremony was also 
attended by foreign dignitaries and members of the diplomatic 
community, including Frances Townsend; Ambassador Ford 
Fraker; Ali Babacan, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs; 
Claude Gyan, Secretary General of France; and members of 
KAUST,s International Advisory Council. 
 
KING ABDULLAH'S DREAM 
 
¶4. (U) The KAUST site encompasses 36 million square meters 
near Thuwal, a small fishing village located on the Red Sea 
approximately fifty miles north of Jeddah. The location was 
selected as part of a large master development plan that will 
stretch from Thuwal to Rabigh and will include a Petroleum 
Complex (PetroRabigh), King Abdullah Economic City and KAUST. 
Once the area is developed, it will link industry, commerce, 
education, business and research. 
 
¶5. (U)  The King's dream is for the university to become a 
world-class institution, able to contribute to the 
global-research enterprise, with emphasis on four programs: 
Energy and Environment, Bioscience and Bioengineering, 
Material Science and Engineering, and Applied Mathematics and 
Computational Science. KAUST will have a faculty of the 
highest caliber, able to formulate value added research 
projects. English language will be the medium of instruction 
at the university, which will be modeled after institutions 
such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and 
Stanford University. 
 
¶6. (U)  The research agenda aims to accelerate scientific 
discovery and technological innovation. The strategy involves 
flexible funding, outreach to potential partner institutions, 
and targeted investments in physical and intellectual 
infrastructure in order to stimulate collaboration with 
research universities around the world, as well as the 
private sector. KAUST will also work with other universities 
in Saudi Arabia, including King Fahd University on Petroleum 
and Minerals, King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah and King 
Saud University in Riyadh. KAUST will be geared toward 
attracting the brightest students; its admissions 
requirements will be extremely high, and students will have 
to compete intensively to enter. 
 
SAUDI ARAMCO'S ROLE 
 
¶7. (U)  The development of KAUST as an independent, 
high-quality research university has been tasked by the King 
 
JEDDAH 00000481  002 OF 002 
 
 
to Saudi Aramco, the world's largest producer of petroleum. 
Aramco will provide leadership for he development of both 
the campus and the initial organizational and academic 
management. Aramco is supported by a distinguished 
International Advisory Council and a team of leading 
consultants in academic and research design and physical 
planning. The company was selected because it has a 75-year 
history of delivering results under the most difficult 
circumstances, and because it has extensive experience in the 
execution of mega-projects, training, and dealing with 
students. 
 
RECRUITMENT OF STUDENTS 
 
¶8. (U)  KAUST has launched a Discovery Scholarship Program 
which focuses on undergraduate students outside the Kingdom 
in their second and third years of study, with the objective 
of having them join KAUST when it opens in 2009. 
Scholarships will be awarded to talented students at their 
current home institutions and will cover tuition, lodging and 
living stipends, books and computer allowances, and summer 
and career enrichment programs. Recruitment of scholarship 
recipients is now under way around the world. 
 
THE ROLE OF WOMEN 
 
¶9. (U)  Dr. Frank H.T. Rhodes, former President of Cornell 
University, addressed the audience at the ground breaking 
ceremony, noting that thanks to the partnerships that this 
new university will have, men and women will come here from 
across the world, men and women of all persuasions, all 
beliefs, and all faiths committed together to openness. Women 
at KAUST will share an equal role with men. They will be free 
to move around, drive, wear western clothes, and enjoy 
similar freedoms as men. 
 
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS 
 
¶10. (U)  KAUST has three primary goals: forming a 
knowledge-based community, supporting scientists and their 
work at the national and international levels, and benefiting 
the community, region and the world through scientific 
research and economic development.  KAUST will achieve these 
goals through partnerships and collaboration agreements with 
leading universities and research centers around the world. 
These partnerships will allow for the exchang of scientific 
expertise and knowledge, and create synergies and foster 
cooperation toward the advancement of scientific progress 
both in the Kingdom and throughout the world. KAUST has so 
far established partnerships with Woods Hole Oceanographic 
Institute (WHOI, Massac`usetts), Institut Francais du Petrole 
(Paris), the National University of Singapore, the Indian 
Institute of Technology, and the American University in Cairo. 
 
COMMENTS AND OPINIONS FROM EVENT ATTENDEES 
 
¶11. (C)  Some of the attendees, including some members of the 
University,s International Advisory Council, were skeptical 
about the King's high expectations for KAUST. They commented 
that the commitment of large amounts of funding to move 
towards the goal of excellence in education, research, and 
academia will help to accelerate progress within the 
university, but funding alone will not be sufficient to 
achieve academic success. Attendees referred to institutions 
such as MIT when suggesting that there is a period of 
maturity that the university must go through to reach such 
excellence. 
 
¶12. (C)  These comments notwithstanding, the project is 
unprecedented in scope and potential impact as a center of 
scientific ind engineering excellence in the Middle East. 
Based on collaborative relationships with eastern and western 
wniversities, an impressive, evolving curriculum and faculty, 
and endowed with great resources, KAUST has all the basic 
ingredients for success.  In keeping with the Secretary,s 
Islamic World Science Partnerships initiative, post will 
continue to follow KAUST's progress carefully. 
GFOELLER