Saudi Arabia

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This page gathers the research institutions in Saudi Arabia that appear in the library's collection. An institution is listed once its researchers have written at least two of the papers held on this site. The page orders institutions by the cited work their scientists produced while affiliated with them, not by size or by the raw number of papers. It belongs to the library's wider directory of research organisations of all kinds, and the Saudi Arabia country page is the entry point for every Saudi institution the collection currently covers.

Read this way, the page is a map of where Saudi research shows up in this library, not a census of the country's research system. Most entries are universities. The list also includes a hospital and a company. The institutions are spread across the main urban centres of the kingdom and several regional cities, so the page gives a broad geographic view of Saudi research activity as it appears among the works here.

Institutions on this site

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, a university the page places in Jeddah, comes first in the ordering. Its position reflects how much its scientists' work in our library has been cited, set against the institution's comparatively modest share of works in the collection. It shows that a small body of papers can carry a lot of weight in the library when other researchers draw on it heavily.

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran is listed second. Among the Saudi institutions here, it has the largest body of works and the most citations overall. That it still sits second shows how the page's ordering works: it measures the cited work scientists did at an institution, and this is not the same as a simple total. For anyone tracing the library's Saudi holdings, the Dhahran university is the single largest presence by volume.

Prince Sultan University in Riyadh follows. It has a sizeable group of works in our library, but those works have attracted relatively few citations so far. Next comes Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University in Al Kharj, which has only a few works here, yet they have been cited considerably more than those of several larger neighbours on the list.

The middle of the list holds Umm al-Qura University in Makkah al Mukarramah and King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. King Abdulaziz University has one of the larger groups of works among the Saudi entries, and its citations are of a similar order to those of King Saud University in Riyadh, which appears a little further down. King Saud University itself has one of the broader sets of works in our library. Between these two, the page lists Jazan University in Gazan, the southernmost city named among the entries.

Further down come Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in Dammam, Taibah University in Medina and Imam Mohammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh. These are followed by Taif University in Ta'if, Alfaisal University in Riyadh and Qassim University in Buraidah. Each of these has a smaller footprint in the collection, ranging from a couple of papers to a handful, and their citation records are correspondingly lighter.

The final entries are Saad Specialist Hospital in Khobar, Tuwaiq Academy in Riyadh, Saudi Aramco in Dhahran and Saudi Electronic University in Riyadh. Saudi Aramco and Saudi Electronic University each have only a couple of works here. Even so, their papers have been cited more than those of some institutions placed above them, a reminder that the ordering is not a straight ranking by citations alone.

Kinds of institution

Universities dominate the Saudi presence on this site. Almost every entry is classed as a university, from large comprehensive institutions in the capital and in Jeddah to regional universities in cities such as Gazan, Buraidah, Ta'if and Medina. Tuwaiq Academy is also classed as a university in the library's directory.

Two entries fall outside the university category. Saad Specialist Hospital, in Khobar, is the only hospital listed. It shows that clinical settings in the Eastern Province contribute papers that the library holds. Saudi Aramco is the only company. Its presence in Dhahran, the same city as King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, places industrial research alongside academic research in one location on the map. On this site, however, the company's share of works is small.

Because the collection lists only institutions with at least two papers, single-paper affiliations do not appear. Research centres, government laboratories or other bodies may also be missing simply because their researchers' work is not yet held here in sufficient number. The list should be read as a picture of what the library currently contains.

Geography

The entries cluster in a few urban centres. Riyadh has the most institutions on the page: Prince Sultan University, King Saud University, Imam Mohammad ibn Saud Islamic University, Alfaisal University, Tuwaiq Academy and Saudi Electronic University are all located there. These Riyadh institutions differ widely in how strongly they are represented in the collection. King Saud University and Prince Sultan University have the larger bodies of work, while Tuwaiq Academy's papers have so far drawn very little citation.

Jeddah, on the Red Sea coast, is home to two universities on the page: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and King Abdulaziz University. Together they make the western coastal city one of the most significant locations for Saudi work in the library, given the citation weight that attaches to the first of them.

The Eastern Province is represented by Dhahran, Dammam and Khobar. Dhahran hosts both King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and Saudi Aramco. Dammam has Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, and Khobar has Saad Specialist Hospital. Taken together, these entries make the Gulf coast a substantial hub in the collection. Most of that weight comes from the Dhahran university.

The holy cities of Makkah al Mukarramah and Medina each have one university on the page: Umm al-Qura University and Taibah University. Ta'if, in the western highlands, contributes Taif University. Elsewhere, Al Kharj, Gazan and Buraidah are each represented by a single university: Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Jazan University and Qassim University. This spread shows that the Saudi works in our library are not confined to the largest cities, even though the biggest concentrations of papers and citations come from a small number of institutions.

Reading the ordering

The page orders institutions by the cited work their scientists did while affiliated with each one. Several consequences follow. An institution with a modest number of works can rank above one with many more, if its papers are drawn on heavily or if its share of each paper's credit is larger. This is visible at the top of the list, where the university in Jeddah precedes the larger body of work associated with Dhahran. It also appears lower down. Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, with few papers here, ranks above several institutions that have more works but fewer citations.

The ordering is also not a judgement about the quality of any institution. It reflects only the papers that happen to be in the library and how often other works have cited them. Institutions whose papers are recent may show low citation figures simply because citations take time to build. The library's holdings also change as new papers are added, so positions on the page can shift.

How the institutions connect

The country page does not set out joint papers between particular Saudi institutions or partnerships abroad. Some links between entries can only be inferred from location, such as the shared base of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, or the two Jeddah universities. Readers who want to see who works with whom should go to the individual institution pages linked above. Each of those pages sets out that institution's works, people and topics as the library holds them.

Using this page

For students, researchers and journalists, the page is most useful as a starting point. It identifies which Saudi institutions have a meaningful presence in the library and roughly how their research has been received. It also shows where in the country that research is based. The research fields, the scientists most active at each institution and the papers that drew the most attention are all found on the institution pages, not here. Taken as a whole, the list shows a research landscape led in this collection by a few universities in Jeddah, Dhahran and Riyadh. Around them are many regional universities, along with one hospital and one company, each represented by a smaller group of papers.