A Comprehensive Analysis of KAUST University's Objectives and KPIs

This report provides an analysis of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a private research university in Saudi Arabia. The report begins with a brief overview of KAUST's history, mission, and vision, highlighting its role in advancing science, technology, and contributing to Saudi Arabia's development. It explores the reasons for KAUST's existence, emphasizing its commitment to addressing global challenges and fostering knowledge for the betterment of humanity. The report identifies key objectives relevant to Saudi Arabia, focusing on areas such as food quality, energy supplies, water quality, and student requirements. These objectives are then translated into Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), with suggestions on how to measure performance in each area, including the cost of food, availability of assets, energy supplies, financial statement audits, and student satisfaction. The report concludes by summarizing the steps required to measure these KPIs on an annual basis to ensure the university is meeting its objectives.

Running Head: KAUST UNIVERSITY 1
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The term KAUST is nothing but an abbreviation of a university present in the Saudi
Arabia. Founded in the year 2009, this university is located in Thuwal, Makkah Province,
Saudi Arabia. The length of the campus is 3600 hectares and the person who is running this
university is Tony F Chan. It is basically a private research university and it provides research
and graduate training programs in English. Up till now the number of the postgraduates is
2000. KAUST is the first mixed gender university in Saudi Arabia. In the year 2013 the
University was among the 500 fastest growing research and the citations record in the world.
Back in the history the university employed the Frank Rhodes to style the academic structure,
SRI international to develop the four research institutes and the campus master plan was
designed by the Architectural firm of HOK. The best feature of the location was the area
which was divided in such a manner that sq km was inclusive of Thuwal and 19.6 sq km of
marine sanctuary offshore. Thereafter the KAUST was officially opened on September 23,
2009. KAUST is the first mixed gender university campus in Saudi Arabia (KAUST, 2018).
Reason for the existence of KAUST
KAUST aspires to be the one of the most important university for determining the
scientific and technological education and research. In order to cater the global challenges,
the KAUST strives as an example of knowledge that bridges the people and nurtures for the
betterment of the humanity.
The mission of KAUST is to advance the science and the technology with the
assistance of distinctive, collaborative and integrated methods adopted while providing the
education. KAUST acts as the catalyst and the driver in maintain the prosperity and the
enhancing the development of Saudi Arabia. Not only is this the mission of the university to
exist for the pursuit of the advancement and the technology and along with that the initiative
of the crystal significance of the four major areas namely the food, energy, water and the
comfortable environment. These are the basic reason why the universities existence is equally
important. The mission is not only to become the top member in the powerhouse area but the
mission also involves in proving itself to be the most advanced in terms of the education as
well (Farooq, ElSawy, Zhu & Alouini, 2017).
Further there are several attributes on which this university thrives on and basically
starting from the environment is driven by the curiosity, the goal of the DNA that bridges the
gap between the people, ideas and traditions from around the world. The cross disciplinary

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organization between Academic Divisions and Research Centre to encourage and leverage
the disciplinary (Adenle & Alshuwaikhat, 2017).
The role of the KAUST is to develop the country with its enormous range of
advancements and Saudi Arabia rose as the power house. Though Saudi Arabia is the world’s
biggest oil producer, the country has made lot of investments in the other field and one such
field is the field of education and research. Five research institutions are the currently in
highlight of the country and the growing the research landscape all together at the next level.
The KAUST ranks as the first in the kingdom and is at 173rd position in terms of global
calculation as per the Nature of Index. This institute tends to be amongst the top 500 in the
world for the top science institutions. In this way KAUST is serving for the country and
encouraging more and more youths to become an active part of the university (KAUST,
2018).
Objectives that can be turned into KPI
There are several objectives which every university needs to comply with and in order
to do that the objectives shall be of some nature that can be of the Key Performance
Indicators. These key performance indicators are the major key drivers which help in
decoding the performance through the measurement of the objectives.
Objective 1: Improve the quality of food as it has the direct link with the lifestyle of the
people living in Saudi Arabia.
Objective 2: Maintain the energy supplies as the major impact is on the oil industry.
Objective 3: Improve the quality of the water.
Objective 4: Conduct regular audit, to find out the variances in the low vouched areas as
well.
Objective 5: Meet the requirements of the students.
Translation of the objectives into KPI:
Energy in Saudi Arabia involves petroleum and natural gas for the production and
consumption and exports and the production of electricity. Since the Saudi’s Arabia is the
world’s leading producer and exporter. For kingdom has been the power house the largest

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world’s largest petroleum and this can be measured with the annual report of the energy
(Tamarkin & Hall, 2016).
Improve the quality of the food is the major reason of the KPI, and to measure the
same one should check the food quality and the necessity of the water so that the production
of the energy is required. This can be measured if the costs can be lowered down and it is so
obvious that the KPI is the cost. The average cost spent on food will determine the
performance of the company (Ramady, 2018).
For the purpose of improving the quality of the water proper sewage system shall be
in place and for turning this KPI into measurement, one must check the water level report, the
storage capacity. Also the average drinking capacity shall be recorded to at least store an
optimum level of water.
The auditing is one factor which can help in measuring the entire performance of the
University based on the objectives set. To measure this KPI the financial statement reports
can be looked upon and this will give a proper insight in terms of the net profit, capital,
assets, liabilities and much more. Hence regular audits are advised.
Lastly the requirements of the students involve the availability of the apparatuses in
labs and the other facility to involve them in the practical scenario. This KPI can be measured
by the number of apparatus in the lab and the report of all the assets available to have the
practical experience (Vijayakumar, 2018).
Summary
In order to summarize the data on how these KPI’s can be measured than required steps
must be followed.
 Cost of food shall not be comprised.
 Availability of the assets.
 The energy supplies shall be more than sufficient or in stock on the annual basis.
 Auditing of the financial statements.
 Measurement of both the objectives shall be on the annual basis (Sarant, 2016).


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