With the dawn of the new millennium, King Abdul Aziz University (KAU) in Jeddah, hastened to take new steps towards development and renovation. Consequently, the university has worked out a wise strategic plan and outlined serious steps to develop all its amenities including the infrastructure that will successfully cater for scientific research and pave the road to globalization. The university commenced its efforts with setting up strong scientific and research partnerships with some world high-status scientific and industrial institutions. These institutions are well-known for their high distinction in their fields of specializations and their scope of development, advancement, rising up the reputation, improving the academic presentation and research and consolidating the community offerings.
The global inclination has been vividly shown via the formation of the University International Advisory Board which includes 20 academic and industrial pioneering leaders in the fields of higher education, industry and production. This Advisory Board comprises reputed, prestigious and experienced leaders selected from eleven countries whose long experience and visions will be wisely invested for the benefit of insightful advice and consultations on the university vital issues along its march of development, research and creativity in a local and a global manner.
The second meeting which was dedicated to identify suitable ways of upgrading the university’s scientific research, has stressed the need of utilizing distinguished scholars that can support and enrich the university’s scientific research. Therefore, the university will seek to attract a number of eminent scholars whose research studies are largely used by other researchers, and who will be named as the “Highly Cited Researchers”. The university went on contacting some of these researchers in order to achieve its strategic plan, as exactly recommended by the University International Advisory Board.
The Higher education is now witnessing severe competition between local and international educational institutions because of the modern development utilized in teaching and learning methods and in the techniques of scientific research. One of the main components of the university works and the higher studies is the distinction of the faculty members, researchers, and their scientific and practical competencies, as the faculty member is considered as the principal active player in promoting the quality of the educational and research programs, so that this tenacious performance will be positively reflected on the overall image of the mean educational institution.
In consequence of this, KAU has headed towards launching several initiatives that would lead to enhance the quality of the educational and research process. One of these initiatives, is to attract the distinguished scholars and researchers from the best international universities and research centers in the various scientific specializations, in compliance with the Strategic Plan II, aimed to strengthening the competencies of the staff members and graduate students, to create a closer cohesive contact with those qualified scholars and researchers. This technique will help transfer the experiences of scholars and researchers in the most reputed international universities and research centers.