MIDDLE EAST: Rankings herald an Arab renaissance

The recent news from the global rankings produced by Quacquarelli Symonds of London and Shanghai Jiao Tong University shows that the Saudi Arabian government's plans to create a knowledge-based economy for the 21st century are beginning to bear fruit.

In recent years the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has begun a drive to diversify the country's economy and create industries based on science and knowledge. To accomplish this the Ministry of Education formulated a 10-year plan from 2004-14 aimed at establishing a universal and competitive system of primary and secondary education and training a competent, literate and numerate workforce.

This had to be accompanied by a massive transformation of the county's higher education system.

The first modern institution of higher education, King Saud University (KSU) in Riyadh, had been established as long ago as 1957, but for some years it was alone. In the last decade, however, many more public and private universities have been set up.

Among them is King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which is a graduate-only institution that aspires to be the Middle Eastern equivalent of Caltech or MIT. Other institutions, such as King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and the Islamic University of Madinah, have been charged with developing expertise in specialised fields.

A variety of initiatives have been launched. Thousands of Saudis, many of them women, have been sent abroad to study, especially in France, Germany, Switzerland and the English-speaking countries. Soon, the total number will be more than 100,000.

There are now plans to start an entirely online university. Partnerships have been established with famous universities and research institutes in Europe, North America, China and Korea.

King Saud University has been given a special role in the transformation of higher education. It is expected to develop world-class doctoral programmes without neglecting undergraduate and professional education. It will also conduct cutting-edge research in nanotechnology, medicine, biochemistry and engineering while continuing to emphasise scholarship in traditional literary, cultural and religious studies.

To achieve these goals, KSU has focused on using global university rankings as a benchmark and a stimulus.

Saudi academics and political leaders were traumatised in 2006 when three leading universities received abysmally low positions in the Webometrics rankings and none were even mentioned by the Academic Ranking of World Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Questions were even raised in the Majlis al Shura, the Consultative Council.

Following this, a determined effort was made to enhance the international standing of Saudi universities, especially KSU. Various programmes were launched.

One of the first was a determined effort to bring the university into the digital age by encouraging faculty to go online and start their own web pages. Shortly afterwards, KSU broke into the world's top 200 universities in the Webometrics rankings.

Another was the Distinguished Scientists Fellowship Programme, which aims to bring scientists of the highest international calibre to KSU and to establish collaborative relationships with leading universities and research institutes. Research partnerships have been established with the Free University of Berlin, University of Texas, Leeds University and the Chinese National Academy, among others.

KSU has also taken steps to ensure that its academics publish in selective journals and conference proceedings. The university's journals are now published by the leading international company, Elsevier, and authors are encouraged to submit papers to top international journals.

The university has signed an agreement with Macmillan, the publishers of Nature, to help develop its ability to publish scientific papers at the highest level. Editors from Nature Publishing Group will visit KSU regularly, to give advice on international publishing.

Since 2008, the university has recruited many highly regarded international scientists and established several well-endowed research chairs. These are not only in the natural sciences, medicine and engineering but also in the social sciences, management and humanities.

Chairs have been established in contemporary Islamic studies, teaching Arabic to speakers of other languages, peace studies, corporate social responsibility, Arabic language and literature, diabetes, ophthalmology, heart disease and obesity.

In addition, undergraduate teaching has been upgraded by establishing a preparatory year programme with an emphasis on attaining proficiency in academic English. The programme will also require students to obtain the International Certificate in Digital Literacy.

The university has also undergone a drastic slimming down. Seven community colleges formerly affiliated to KSU have become independent and, in some cases, have been awarded full university status. The university is thus able to focus solely on degree-level teaching.

These measures are beginning to pay off.

In 2009, KSU made its first appearance in general international rankings. It was ranked at 247 in the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings and 500 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong. In 2010 the university registered further advances, reaching 221 in the QS ranking and the 300 to 400 band in the Shanghai rankings.

This year has brought further recognition. KSU reached the top 200 universities in the QS rankings. The university was rated highly in the academic peer review and international faculty criteria. The university's score for citations per faculty was admittedly very low, reflecting the limited extent of research and publications a decade ago rather than current reality or future aspirations.

In the Shanghai rankings this year, the university reached 261st place overall. It was in the top 100 universities for highly-cited researchers, reflecting the recruitment of top-flight scientists under the Distinguished Scientists Fellowship Programme.

With regard to publications in ISI-indexed journals in the natural and social sciences, over the last three years the university has begun to do very well. Its score on this indicator was, for example, only exceeded by six Australian universities. In addition, KSU is now beginning to publish papers in Science and Nature and these are confidently expected to increase in coming years.

Other universities in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East have also begun to do well in the rankings.

Can this progress be sustained?

An article in University World News by Professor Ramez Maluf suggests that that in order to progress further, Arab universities should become more autonomous and should extend academic and intellectual freedom as, he argues, is the case in the elite institutions of the West.

It is likely that Saudi and Arab universities will gradually receive more freedom and autonomy in the future and this is indeed an ingredient in the achievement of world-class status.

However, it is perhaps simplistic to suggest that academic freedom is an essential element in the current standing of Harvard and other elite Western universities and research institutes. It is well documented that leading US schools are effectively one-party states in which political conservatives and Republicans are close to being endangered species. The treatment given to James Watson, Larry Summers and Thio Li-Ann indicates that there are clear limits to academic freedom in the West.

It could be that Maluf's concept of an ideal university is one that is unrealistic and overly Eurocentric. For many in Asia and Africa perhaps, Professor Simon Marginson's model of the Confucian university is one that will be more attractive and will be more likely to promote world-class higher education.

The accomplishments of King Saud University and other Arab universities are therefore substantial and are likely to lead to further progress in coming years.

* Khaled AS Al-Rasheid is Director of the Distinguished Scientists Fellowship Programme at King Saud University.