YEAR 2001 PRESS RELEASES

Former students celebrate scheme’s success

 9 April 2001

 Former participants of a ground-breaking scheme to promote collaboration between British and Saudi specialists assembled for a reception in Riyadh on Tuesday March 27 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 Programme 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 programme gives Saudi specialists the chance to work alongside their British counterparts during the summer vacation period 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’ programme coordinator. “The reception presented a unique opportunity to show the success of the programme and how much BAE SYSTEMS supports the Kingdom’s Saudization drive.”

 Former students celebrate scheme’s success

 More than 20 awards are made each year for up to three months of study at some of the UK’s leading research centres. Saudis on the scheme undertake an agreed programme of research, which has led to work being published in scientific journals worldwide

 “Candidates come from all of the Kingdom’s universities,” Peter Waddell said. “Their research covers a vast range of subjects and the programme allows them to take advantage of all the facilities that centres of higher education in the UK have to offer.”

 Those academies who participated in the programme run last year conducted covered a wide range of subjects including private funding for universities, construction industry safety issues, business negotiations, the care of diabetic patients, and highly specialised aspects of engineering. Past research has resulted in the discovery of a new strain of infection, issues to do with soil improvement the management of water resources and other subjects vital to the people of Saudi Arabia.

 BAE SYSTEMS is the name of 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 for thousands more employed in external organisations.

 It is a global systems company committed to delivering outstanding capability to customers worldwide in the defence and aerospace sectors.

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Issued on behalf of BAE SYSTEMS’ Public Relations. For further information please contact Damian James on 02 672 2276, fax: 02 676 0597 or email: djames@hillandknowlton.com.sa