On Monday, the 19^th of June, during the ceremony honoring 50 researchers from the teaching faculty members at the Deanship of Scientific Research's Awards Ceremony, which was held at the University City in Al-Fara’a, His Excellency King Khalid University President, Prof. Faleh bin Raja Allah Al-Solami, confirmed that the university is one of the highest-performing universities in the field of scientific research among Saudi universities, providing what the researcher needs, including research laboratories and their equipment, as well as supporting every creative research idea, which may result in original scientific research, a patent, or a marketable research product.

Al-Solami added that the university is working through its educational system to promote a culture of research and innovation, in line with the ambitious Kingdom's 2030 Vision, and serve the goals of the Ministry of Education by increasing competitiveness in this field, which would result in increasing research publishing in recognized publishing journals.

On his part, Dean of the Deanship of Scientific Research, Dr. Muhammad bin Yahya Abu Dahma, explained that the research performance of KKU for 2022 was the highest since its founding in terms of the quantity and quality of scientific publications, as the rate of increase in the number of research during the past 5 years was estimated at 565%, ranking 3^rd nationally, where the number of citations reached 100,000 citations, ranking 5^th in this regard.

He added that during 2022, the university published 4921 research papers, which received 9482 citations, according to WOS, and 5430 pieces of research that received 17,562 citations, according to Scopus. By creating an office for intellectual property and patents under the Deanship of Scientific Research, the university gave careful consideration to the elements, which assist researchers in registering patents. In addition, 41 patents were granted to university researchers in 2022, and many more were registered with numerous international patent granting offices, as well as the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property.

It is worth noting that the awards included the Scientific Citation Award, the Publication Abundance Award, the Outstanding Research Publication Award, the Promising Researcher Award, and the Patents Award.