For all the modernity of the research facilities found at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), its president Ed Byrne notes the more traditional side to academic enquiry happening on campus.
Located an hour and a half’蝉 drive north of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast, KAUST’蝉 vast campus – boasting a world top 50 supercomputer, Shaheen III; advanced laboratories for solar energy and desalination research; and two million square feet of research space?– has echoes of the more remote scholarly enclaves that would eventually become some of Europe’蝉 and America’蝉 research powerhouses.
Geographically speaking, Byrne admitted there was some truth to this, noting the university’蝉 founder, the late King Abdullah, was inspired by records of the House of Wisdom founded in Baghdad more than 1,000 years ago – the famed seat of learning that predated University of Bologna by more than 200 years.
Yet, while acknowledging he is running a “city community of scholars” similar to those historic intellectual centres, there is nothing insular about KAUST, he insisted, noting how it is “very much an international community drawing great people from all over the world”.
“They are doing great science in an incredibly well-funded and well-resourced environment with access to the best core technologies and most outstanding postdocs and PhDs you'd find in any university on Earth,” said Byrne, a year into his presidency of KAUST, having previously led major research universities in the UK and Australia (King’蝉 College London and Monash University respectively).
“We are an isolated community but this is not an inward-looking community,” he continued on KAUST’蝉 mission to produce world-leading research that will have immediate benefit for all – but particularly for Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
“It’蝉 an outward-looking community [where] people are committed absolutely to the translation of their science in real time to the benefit of the kingdom and humanity at large,” he explained, adding: “It is by far the most applied university I’ve worked at?– particularly in terms of the urgency of practical, measurable outcomes that both governments and the man in the street can see and say ‘wow, isn’t that great?’”
Having led two great civic universities with distinction, Byrne is clearly relishing the chance to focus squarely on research excellence and impact, rather than engaging on multiple fronts,?including teaching, support for undergraduates and regional demands, as was expected at his former institutions. “This place is a scholarly nirvana,” he said.
That hyperbole is perhaps understandable given Byrne’蝉 own medical research background. To explain further he refers to Donald Stokes’ into four quadrants to illustrate where he sees KAUST. In Stokes’ formulation there is the Niels Bohr quadrant (pure basic research), the Thomas Edison quadrant (pure applied research) and the Louis Pasteur quadrant (use-inspired basic research), with a remaining box described, somewhat dismissively, as “tinkering”.
“You definitely need the Bohr quadrant, very pure science, and we have that in KAUST, and then there is the totally applied Edison quadrant. But most of our research is in the Pasteur quadrant,” explained Byrne, adding: “This is the great science but with great application.”
“Pasteur led the discovery of immunology, of stereochemistry and multiple other things, but he applied them to immunisation, even fixing the beer at Whitbread’蝉 Brewery. He was probably the greatest medical scientist who ever lived but he was an applied scientist. More and more scientists, I think, need to get into that mindset,” he said, adding “This is what KAUST is all about. People here are working on important questions.”
With global challenges related to climate change, clean water and food security particularly pressing in the arid environment of the Middle East, KAUST’蝉 applied science mission has become increasingly more important, continued Byrne who makes no apologies for this focus.
“We don’t have 500 years for people to sit around and be introspective – we are not talking about ephemeral things far away on the horizon. They’re very real-time issues that need answers,” he insisted.
“Many of the greatest intellects in the world today work in universities?– that’蝉 how it should be – but there is also a responsibility on us to sort out many of the world’蝉 ongoing problems,” he said, adding: “Covid showed we could do it within a very short time?– things were developed at lightning speed that in the past would have taken much, much longer.”
“My strong recommendation to my university colleagues is where your institution has the capacity, you have an absolute responsibility to make sure that your institution is doing its part in solving the problems of the world – and in a timely way,” he continued.
Of course the case for funding research via taxpayers’ money has often been made with reference to its societal impact. Yet KAUST’蝉 modus operandi – funding world-class research talent to tackle specific societal challenges – seems increasingly in tune with policy shifts in Europe, the US and Australia where research funding is increasingly geared towards “missions” and impact.
For some, this shift towards impact has become a fundamental matter of academic freedom given how it affects the right to teach or research in a discipline, and choose the direction to go.
Perhaps controversially for the head of a Saudi institution, Byrne argues academic freedom is the “underpinning pillar of successful universities everywhere, because brilliant people have to be empowered to think great thoughts and develop new things”. But this has “always been balanced increasingly by other forces”, he said.
“It is important to respect Haldane principles where you fund good stuff, whatever it is, but we should also be focusing on areas of strategic importance to the nation, either regionally or nationally or internationally. This is how universities have become such large research engines,” he said. That applies to education too, he added. “People should have the opportunity to design academic offerings but we have to meet the needs of the countries and the regions in which we operate as universities by providing the workforce they need, not just for today, but for tomorrow,” said Byrne.
“If you go back hundreds of years, it may have been different when universities were communities of isolated scholars, but in my lifetime, research and higher education spending has always been constrained by national need, by funding priorities and by workforce priorities.”
As a postgraduate institution KAUST does not appear in 探花视频’蝉 World University Rankings (despite hosting its World Academic Summit in October), although it does top the?THE?Arab University Rankings,?and?it seems clear that KAUST is living up to its ambition to become the “MIT or Caltech of the Middle East”. In the ranking focused on publications in top journals it is a top 150 institution – the youngest institution to achieve this honour, aside from China’蝉 Westlake University – and a top 100 institution for physical sciences and chemistry.
“We are publishing Nature and Science articles galore on an almost weekly basis,” said Byrne on his institution’蝉 achievements.
KAUST’蝉 game plan is fairly simple, he added. “Recruit the best people in the world, wherever they come from. That means the largest number of faculty are from the great American universities, people who have had substantial careers in the world’蝉 top 50 universities, but we have large numbers from Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and increasing numbers of younger faculty from Saudi,” he said of his international staff body (85 per cent are from outside the Middle East).
But expectations remain high, he continued. “Saudi Arabia is investing a massive amount in this institution. It needs and expects certain outcomes, not only in terms of graduating outstanding master’蝉 and PhD students who are prepared for the future, but making sure research is done which can solve the problems the kingdom needs to help it thrive as a nation.”
“I see that as a privilege, not a difficulty,” he said.
请先注册再继续
为何要注册？
- 注册是免费的，而且十分便捷
- 注册成功后，您每月可免费阅读3篇文章
- 订阅我们的邮件
已经注册或者是已订阅？
