Update: KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology)

We've been following the planning and development of this unique institution. Here's an update: "KAUST has already launched joint research programmes with institutions ranging from the National University of Singapore to France's Institut Francais du Petrole to Britain's Cambridge and Stanford in the United States. . . . And it has created its own research operations spanning nanotechnology, applied mathematics, solar energy, membrane research and bioengineering . . . 'Two years ago it was nothing but sand and sea. Today there is one of the best infrastructures for research,' KAUST president Choon Fong Shih told AFP." The town and gown issues are pretty intense, with squads of hard-liner religious police fighting the spread of women's rights from campus to the surrounding area.