King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Saudi Arabia · Asia
About
The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST, jāmiʿat al-malik ʿabd al-Lāh li-l-ʿulūm wa-t-teqniyya) is a public research university located in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. Founded in 2009, the university provides research and graduate training programs in English as the official language of instruction. It is named after King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the ruler of Saudi Arabia from 2005 until 2015. KAUST is the first mixed-gender university campus in Saudi Arabia. In 2013, the university was among the 500 fastest growing research and citation records in the world. In the 2016 Nature Index Rising Stars, the university ranked 19th in the world of the fastest rising universities for high-quality research output. In 2019, KAUST was ranked the 8th fastest rising young university (aged 50 and under) for research output since 2015, as measured by fractional count (FC). In 2025, KAUST was ranked #1 among Arab Universities for the third consecutive year by Times Higher Education. The university's fourth president, neuroscientist Sir Edward Byrne, took office in September of 2024.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.