King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Selects Three Universities for Center-In-Development Grants

Support links KAUST to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, National Taiwan University and Utrecht University to body analysis accommodation through KAUST's Global Research Partnership (GRP). KAUST is committed to accepting a agitator of world-class research These grants accommodate a foundation of abutment for programs that will be generators of new breakthroughs that account Saudi Arabia and the apple in abounding allusive ways. We accept top expectations for these grantees We accept these are world-class analysis centers at an aboriginal date of development They reflect KAUST's mission of analysis addition to the ambiance and to bread-and-butter development. As such, they are anon affiliated to KAUST's interests in soil, baptize and bank resources, solar energy, and petrochemicals and polymers.

Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia -- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology's (KAUST) Global Research Partnership (GRP) today appear the alternative of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia, National Taiwan University, and Utrecht University in the Netherlands for Center-In-Development (CID) grants.

The grants will be adjourned by KAUST, a new graduate-level university accepting accustomed in Saudi Arabia, and are advised to accredit anniversary almsman university to accomplish new research and the accommodation for an interdisciplinary centermost of arete in specific areas of scientific and technological analysis that are a lot of accordant to KAUST's analysis priorities and its development.

"KAUST is committed to accepting a agitator of world-class research," said KAUST President-designate Choon Fong Shih. "These grants accommodate a foundation of abutment for programs that will be generators of new breakthroughs that account Saudi Arabia and the apple in abounding allusive ways."

"We accept top expectations for these grantees," KAUST Interim Vice President Dr. Mohamed Samaha added. "They are capital universities, and we attending advanced to years of growing calm with them in the accurate community. Their plan adds assortment and abyss to KAUST's analysis portfolio. And as they represent institutions from three altered continents, they aswell reflect KAUST's acceptance that world-class science is a all-around endeavor that have to cantankerous all-embracing and cultural boundaries to thrive."

"We accept these are world-class analysis centers at an aboriginal date of development," said Dr. Frank Press, above admiral of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and adviser to the alternative committee, KAUST acting carnality admiral for research. "They reflect KAUST's mission of analysis addition to the ambiance and to bread-and-butter development. As such, they are anon affiliated to KAUST's interests in soil, baptize and bank resources, solar energy, and petrochemicals and polymers."

The grants will abutment three Centers-in-Development:
 

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals' (KFUPM) Transformative Research in Petrochemicals and Polymers, led by Principal Investigator Sulaiman Al-Khattaf, will focus on the development of beat catalysts and on the kinetics of key processes in bearing average petrochemicals as able-bodied as on polyolefin additives and processing polymeric membranes for ammunition cells. Efforts will be targeted at acclamation the accepted and approaching needs of the petrochemical industry in the Kingdom. KFUPM interdisciplinary teams alternating with all-embracing collaborators will accompany their own contributions to the success of the analysis and plan plan. KAUST acceptance will accept an befalling to participate in this applied activated analysis alpha in 2009. This accolade will accommodate new avenues for R&D at KFUPM and for the training of acceptance who may move to KAUST afterward graduation. National Taiwan University's (NTU) Solar Energy Research Center (SERC), led by Principal Investigator Bin-Juine Huang, will serve as the belvedere for amalgam above solar activity analysis efforts underway at NTU, acclamation both activated analysis and technology development. The SERC will focus on arrangement integration, product-oriented analysis and development, and addition in arrangement enhancement for architecture of solar-assisted air conditioning, heating, desalination, and LED lighting applications in buildings. NTU will accommodate barter opportunities for both adroitness and acceptance from KAUST and will abetment KAUST with the enactment of a SERC on the KAUST campus. Students from KAUST will be acceptable at NTU for training in applied architecture of solutions to absolute industry problems. They will aswell abetment with the acclimation of absolute energy-saving, solar-assisted architecture heating and cooling devices, as able-bodied as LED lighting for operation in Saudi Arabia's arduous climate. Utrecht University's Center for Soil, Water and Coastal Resources (SOWACOR), led by Principal Investigator Philippe Van Cappellen, will administer the analysis and development capabilities of 14 European and all-embracing organizations and institutions in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and France to the acceptable use of soil, water, and bank resources. Real-world validation and appliance of beat concrete and biological approaches for baptize analysis and clay remediation, including the abatement of baneful metals and amoebic contaminants, will accommodate important abetment to KAUST in its antecedence antecedent areas for analysis focus. SOWACOR will act as a clearinghouse for ideas, people, and ability amid the accommodating institutes in Europe and KAUST, and advice to accent research, education, training, collective fieldwork, and beat in abutment of KAUST's mission. In accession to abbreviate courses, training, and collaborative analysis projects involving KAUST adroitness and students, SOWACOR will abetment with the design, instrumentation, and operation of a KAUST ecology anchor in Saudi Arabia.
Each KAUST GRP Center-in-Development angle was advised in detail and denticulate by amid 5 and seven added reviewers fatigued from the association of bookish and automated advisers about the world. A absolute of 65 all-embracing experts contributed reviews to the Center and CID competitions.

The GRP Technical Advisory Committee and admiral evaluating and advising proposals for allotment included:
 

Omar Abdul-Hamid, Ph.D., manager, Saudi Aramco Research and Development Center Roland Chin, Ph.D., assistant of computer science and carnality admiral of Academic Affairs, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Ahmed Ghoniem, Ph.D., Ronald C. Crane (1972) Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Steve Koonin, Ph.D., arch scientist, British Petroleum, and above provost, California Institute of Technology. Michael Thomashow, Ph.D., university acclaimed assistant and director, MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University David Tirrell, Ph.D., analysis chair, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology Fawwaz Ulaby, Ph.D., provost-designate, KAUST, and Arthur Thurnau Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan
Dr. Frank Press, above admiral of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and Dr. Jack Breese, a above administrator at Microsoft Research, served as admiral to the panel.

The alternative of the CIDs was based on belief including accurate merit, authoritative and administration plan, the abeyant to coact in a aggregation environment, and the absolute appliance and allowances of the proposed analysis to KAUST's aboriginal development and analysis priorities--including activity and environment, abstracts science and engineering, biosciences, and activated mathematics and computational science.

About the Global Research Partnership (GRP) and KAUST
The GRP is advised to serve KAUST's adorning and abiding sustainability needs by establishing able links with the absolute all-around analysis enterprise. KAUST launched the GRP in August 2007 as a allotment of its action to body the University's analysis capacity. The GRP action begins with a ample address of proposals and relies on a competitive, absolute associate analysis to baddest and armamentarium analysis agitated out at the proposing academy on the base of above and appliance to KAUST's mission.

Under the GRP, there are three capital programs: Investigators, which are grants for alone scientists arch baby groups of researchers; Centers and Centers-in-Development, which absorb assorted board arch commutual curve of research; and Fellows, for post-doctoral researchers.

In March 2008, KAUST awarded the aboriginal annular of its GRP Investigator grants to twelve awful able scientists and engineers from about the world. KAUST expects to advertise its grants to Fellows in May 2008.

Also in May, KAUST will host its aboriginal acquisition of Investigators, Centers, Centers-in-Development and Fellows at the aboriginal GRP Technical Symposium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The accident will acceptable new advisers and advisers to Saudi Arabia in a appropriate appointment to authorize relationships and collaborations a allotment of them and added associates of the KAUST network.

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is accepting complete in Saudi Arabia as an international, graduate-level analysis university committed to alarming a new age of accurate accomplishment in the Kingdom, above the arena and about the globe. As an independent, merit-based institution, KAUST will accredit top advisers from about the apple to plan calm to break arduous accurate and abstruse problems. The KAUST all-around analysis and apprenticeship arrangement will abutment assorted talents both on its campus and at added arch universities and analysis institutions through collaborative analysis agreements, grants, and apprentice scholarship programs. The amount campus, amid on added than 36 actor aboveboard meters on the Red Sea at Thuwal, is set to accessible in September 2009. For added advice about KAUST, appointment http://www.kaust.edu.sa.