President’s Blog

Hello again. And Eid Mubarak. And welcome to our returning students after your rather generous holiday. My last letter intimated that I would be speaking about undergraduate research. And indeed, I would be doing so. 

However, before that, I would like to comment a little about the growth of our graduate programs. Why is expanding their number important? Because they are partly needed as a quick injection of talent in any economy (especially a certain type of graduate programs that we have come to know at KFUPM as the MX programs or the Master of X), and partly for long-term economic sustainability and progress (especially the PhD programs). An MX program is essentially a Master of Engineering degree that would allow someone in the industry with a certain skill set to upgrade their skills to become much more valuable and needed in the economy. For example, a generic mechanical engineer becomes a nuclear power engineer or a generic electrical engineer specializes in renewable systems or bioelectronics, and so on. To date, we have launched 43 of these programs in areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Cybersecurity and Blockchains, Smart and Sustainable Cities, Cloud and Edge Computing, High Performance Computing, Computational Analytics, etc. The demand for the vast majority of them has been quite substantial or oversubscribed.

As stated above, in the MX programs a practitioner in the industry can be upskilled and become much more effective in a new venture within the Kingdom and push forward the agenda of starting or nourishing a new sector. For example, met a new PIF-funded venture (if you don’t know, PIF is the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom, and one of the largest worldwide) that specializes in commoditizing AI in various industries in the Kingdom (for example, to be used in the early detection of breast cancer from mammograms, or detection of fraudulent online transactions, etc.). We were told that 90% of their project managers are graduates of our new MX program, which at the time was only a year old. It is evident that these programs are critically important in terms of activating any economy and preparing it for the future in a very short period, as well as allowing practitioners to upskill themselves to be more relevant in the economies of the future.

The other type of graduate programs are the ones focusing on research and leading eventually to a PhD degree. These are critical to persevering long-term economic progress and have the greatest impact on the future of humanities. We have not touched those substantively since the onset of the transformation, but our intent in the future is to completely overhaul these programs, modernize them, and ensure that the dosage of courses relative to research is commensurate with the best-of-breed in international universities. I will share these changes in a future letter once developed. KFUPM continues to attract graduate students to these programs from within the Kingdom, and from around the world. They represent a boon not just to the economy, but they are essential to any thriving research program, as they enrich the research activities and enable our faculty members to vastly extend their impact and research work by including them in their teams and supervising their theses. Indeed, graduate students represent an important building block of a thriving research university, and the ability of faculty to be able to produce technical output depends to a large degree on the graduate students with whom they are working. (If you don’t know, once a new graduate student refers to a particular faculty member as the one who recruited them into his/her areas, they are assigned to that faculty member – unless too many students are assigned already).

Speaking of graduate students, their numbers have increased from 1,231 in 2019 to 2,520 currently. That increase was helped only a little bit by the MX programs, as the vast majority came from admitting new students into the MSc/PhD programs. This increase meant that the University now has a graduate-to-total student ratio of 30%, which is quite respectable, up from only 14% three years ago (in both cases of course not counting Prep Year.). Our goal is not to stop there, but to push it towards 40% in the near term, and to 50% ultimately.

The diversity of graduate students has also improved quite substantially. For example, the percentage of females among our graduate students increased from 5% three years ago to 19% currently; and even more outstanding is the increase in diversity in terms of geography. The vast majority of our graduate students three years ago came from only two large populous countries and in total from only 29 countries. This number has increased rapidly to 67 countries currently, from Ecuador, Bolivia, the US, and Canada in the west, all the way to China, Indonesia, and others in the east, spanning many European and African countries along the way. See the following map.

And now to the pièce de résistance of this letter: undergraduate research, which is a topic that continues my previous letter on research and this letter on graduate students and their research programs. Research is a fundamental building block of discovery and innovation, and it is truly a required skill at every level in the University, because the applicability of research is not limited to academia – research is about problem solving, which is a key skill of any successful practitioner in any industry. Advanced global universities always emphasize research for undergraduate students – an area that has been lacking at KFUPM until now. Therefore, KFUPM is introducing undergraduate research big time, such that every undergraduate student at KFUPM will be given the opportunity to engage in research, at varying dosages, according to their desires and capabilities.

In particular, eight tracks have been developed, which are outlined below. They represent a very rich portfolio from which a student can pick one or more in which to enroll. It is important to note that 1) these are optional (but at least the very basic one is required if none of the other ones are selected), and 2) a student is not expected to enroll in all of them – that would be wasteful duplication, as the tracks indeed have much in common between them, and they are designed to stimulate broadly the same set of skills but at varying extents and depths, such that they cater to students who are interested in only a fleeting, light exposure, all the way to those who intend to pursue their graduate studies and want an early solid foundation that buttresses that desire. The tracks are as follows:

1. Introduction to Research: This is a one-credit Pass/Fail course that introduces the student to the minimum experience required in research. However, it does not count toward the degree program. It will include topics such as the building blocks of research, identifying journals, understanding references and citations, reviewing papers, and the like. This course will serve as a prerequisite for some of the future research courses. Its level is Freshman and above and is taught by researchers, postdocs, graduate students, and adjunct faculty. Its final output by the student is a paper review. This is the minimum required research activity for students at KFUPM.
2. Guided Research: In this track, the student will contribute to a research project which is already being conducted by one of the faculty members or researchers. The adviser can be a faculty member, researcher, or postdoc. Unlike the other tracks, the research need not be vertically integrated, and the topic need not be devised by the student; rather, the student will help the main research activities of the adviser through this guided participation. The research area is adviser-driven, and the duration is one full term, with an average of 9 to 12 hours weekly, though the student can opt to repeat the program for a second time. Also, unlike the other tracks, the student is paid 500 SR per month for their active participation, and earns a certificate, recognition in the student's non-academic transcript, and some priority in conference attendance.
3. Independent Research: This is a two-semester two-credit course that is graded and is considered part of the degree plan. Unlike the tracks above, this is a much deeper course, in which the student will devise an idea by himself/herself, seek a mentor, and then utilize the duration of the course to develop this idea into a successful research endeavor. It is offered to students who are Sophomores and above, and the grading is part of the new initiative by the University to create a journal called “Journal of Undergraduate Research”. This is a completely refereed journal that is led by a faculty member and whose editors are researchers, postdocs, and graduate students. The grade for this course will correspond to whether the paper developed during the course is accepted by this journal (or an international Q1/Q2 journal) and the rating assigned to this paper by the journal. The course will be conducted by faculty members, researchers, postdocs, and adjunct faculty, perhaps with some participation from the graduate students.
4. Vertically Integrated Research: This is a track that exists in other international universities, in which a student enrolls in an existing project under the supervision of a faculty member and as part of a team comprising undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs. During this course, the student tackles a particular piece of a much larger project and attempts to help bring that portion to fruition. The overall project typically continues for several years, though one student’s participation would be limited to only a small part (hence the name vertically integrated, as students build on other students’ contributions). This program targets students who are Sophomores and above. The course can be repeated for a total of four credits; however, these are not counted towards the degree plan. The assessment is based on the individual and team assessment by the faculty member, and the effort is mentored by faculty members, researchers, and postdocs.
5. Research Concentration: Concentrations have become a familiar concept at KFUPM, where a student specializes in a specific multidisciplinary topic. By now, the University has over 48 concentrations in various interesting and exciting fields. In this particular concentration, the focus is on research. The student will take a total of four courses in the Junior and Senior years, for a total of 12 credit hours over two or more semesters. These hours are counted towards the degree plan. Two of the courses will constitute the undergraduate thesis, whilst another course will be on innovation and entrepreneurship, and the fourth can be an elective undergraduate or graduate course in the area of focus of the student. In this concentration, the student is expected to devise a problem and spend the duration of the program developing research in this area and bringing it to a fruitful conclusion. Part of the assessment of the undergraduate thesis is that it is accepted for publication in an actual journal outside of KFUPM or in KFUPM’s Journal of Undergraduate Research.
6. Bachelor of X: In this track, a very intelligent student will declare an unstructured major at KFUPM – a major that does not currently exist at KFUPM, and, maybe not even at any university. Examples include computational neuroscience, oil field chemistry, AI and cybersecurity, and so on. This track is open to newly admitted students as well as Freshmen students. During the first two semesters of the Freshman year, students must identify their desired major topic and submit a proposal to be approved by the Academic Committee. Once approved, that proposal becomes the degree requirement for that major. The student is free to structure the program as appropriate from courses within or outside KFUPM, and is allowed to spend one to two semesters in an international university as part of an extended exchange program, to complete the degree requirements in the selected field. This is a very selective track that will be open to only a few students every year, but is expected to capitalize on the student’s energy, intelligence, and desire to make a difference for humanity.
7. International Summer Research: In this track, the student travels abroad to conduct research in a Top-100 international university, and could accompany a KFUPM faculty member or go alone. The student must be a high achiever at KFUPM and must be willing to cover part of the expenses during this research opportunity. The project undertaken is student-driven with the endorsement of the host adviser at the international destination, and a final report is expected, preferably with a journal or conference publication. The students will receive roundtrip tickets, a certificate, recognition in their transcript, and 2,000 SR per month to supplement their living expenses.
8. Inbound Summer Research Program: This track is open to non-KFUPM students, whether at the university or high school levels, during the summer. Such students must declare a research area and submit a proposal, and once accepted they will be provided with a mentor within KFUPM, as well as complimentary accommodation and food stamps to spend during their stay at KFUPM.

In all, these programs will contribute to a vibrant research experience by KFUPM students, and a very rich portfolio of tracks that would help propel the skills of our students and achieve the objectives of Vision 2030 towards expanding the economy of the Kingdom and developing talent that is demanded by future sectors. I dare say that few if perhaps no other university has the depth and range of selection of this rich portfolio of options. The tracks are summarized in the table below. These tracks are at the approval stage and are expected to commence in the new academic year (the summer research is expected to start this summer, in fact). Watch out for announcements for webinars to explain them some more and for links for applications. Also note all the descriptions here in the text and table are preliminary; some details may change before launch.

The University is very excited about these opportunities. Are you?