Research Pillars: Driving Innovation and Collaboration

By focusing on interdisciplinary research and strategic partnerships, KFUPM aims to tackle major societal challenges and contributing to the advancement of science and technology.

KFUPM has developed an innovation-driven research strategy built around five key factors that reflect its recent transformation and future goals. This strategy focuses on fostering collaboration, addressing major challenges, and advancing groundbreaking research.

Innovation-Based Research Strategy

KFUPM’s innovation-driven research strategy is built upon five key pillars.

Clear
Purpose

Focus on
Grand Challenges

All-inclusive
Participation

Interdisciplinary
Contribution

Collaboration
and Partnerships

Clear Purpose

To conduct research that contributes positively to the well-being of humanity and society, and therefore focuses on projects (whether abstract or applied) that will eventually translate into an apparatus, equipment, processes, chemicals, materials, or the likes. The University considers other indicators, such as the number of publications, citations, and patents, as outcomes and by-products of this clear purpose, rather than being objectives on their own.

Focus on Grand Challenges

The University believes that its research activities must solve grand challenges facing humanity, such as the shortage of water, hunger, access to energy, and similar global issues. Therefore, it prioritizes the pursuit of solutions to these grand challenges and believes that it is within the incremental steps to these grand challenges that other incremental useful research outcomes will materialize.

All-inclusive Participation

Every faculty member at the University must contribute to conducting research, such that KFUPM is a research university that does teaching, rather than being a teaching university that does research.

Interdisciplinary Contribution

Wherein the focus of KFUPM research is primarily on the intersection of different disciplines. As the University believes that it is the nexus of the disciplines that leads to cutting-edge, useful research that benefits humanity.

Collaboration and Partnerships

The University works closely with research partners, such as other academic institutions, research centers, technology developers, end users, governmental and regulatory agencies, and civic organizations to develop its projects and propel them forward through implementation in order to achieve desired societal impact.