JEDDAH, 23 April — Former participants of a ground-breaking scheme to promote collaboration between Saudi and British specialists assembled for a reception in Riyadh recently to mark 10 successful years of the scheme.
Every year since 1991, British Aerospace and its successor company BAE Systems has funded a post-doctoral summer research program for Saudi academics, an arrangement managed by the British Council. The reception at the Marriott Hotel brought together some of the 200 former participants, senior BAE Systems executives and directors of the British Council.
The post-doctoral program gives Saudi specialists the chance to work alongside their British counterparts during the summer vacation and is designed to introduce the staff at Saudi universities and other research institutions to British research facilities. The impact has been to further enhance the quality of specialist research and to strengthen ties between academic institutions in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world.
“It has also highlighted the quality of British higher education,” said Peter Waddell, BAE Systems program coordinator. “The reception presented a unique opportunity to show the success of the program and how much BAE Systems supports the Kingdom’s Saudization drive.”
More than 20 scholarships are given out each year for up to three months of study at some of the leading research centers in Britain.
Saudis on the scheme undertake an agreed program of research, which has led to work being published in scientific journals worldwide
Candidates come from all of the Kingdom’s universities, Waddell said. “Their research covers a vast range of subjects and the program allows them to take advantage of all the facilities that centers of higher education in the UK have to offer,” he said. BAE Systems is the new company formed by the November 1999 merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems.
The company employs more than 2,500 Saudi nationals in the Kingdom and has provided training to thousands more employed in external organizations.
