Research and Development Office, MoE, KSA

In May 2017, an initiative within Saudi Arabia’s National Transformation Plan (NTP) was approved to support research and development in 28 public universities. In March 2018, the Kingdom launched a new government agency within the Ministry of Education, The Research & Development Office (RDO). The RDO is led by its Director General (DG), Dr. Hisham Alhadlaq. He reports to H.E. the Minister of Education who is also the Chairman of RDO’s Steering Committee.. The RDO’s mission is to ensure that Saudi Arabia’s indigenous Research & Development (R&D) sector, particularly in its public universities, will be one of the engines propelling Saudi Arabia’s drive to improve economic competitiveness, enhance efficiency, and transform its traditional structure. RDO seeks to ensure that Saudi Arabia’s R&D is successfully commercialized and it will empower universities to build mutually rewarding and sustainable relationships with the public and private sector inside the Kingdom. RDO will also stimulate demand for high quality R&D from industry and the Saudi SME sector, among others, and will facilitate partnerships between Saudi Arabia’s public universities and leading international R&D partners around the world. RDO will also work to support the transformation of Saudi Arabia’s public universities to become self-sustaining and less reliant on public funding. The RDO mission will be implemented in the medium term through the disbursement of a three-year budget, through to 2020, of SAR6 billion (US$1.6 billion), of which a significant percentage will be spent with international R&D partners.