Saudi Arabia Research Grants: RDIA, KAUST and KACST Funding Guide (2026)

Published October 10, 2026

Saudi Arabia research grants are funded through a small number of national and institutional schemes, and the names, eligibility rules and calls change faster than most guides admit. This page covers what the Research, Development and Innovation Authority (RDIA) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) publish today, explains why we could not confirm current King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) schemes, and shows how to line up a proposal with the journal publication and acknowledgment duties that come after an award. Every scheme name, figure and rule below comes from an official funder page or funder document read on 10 October 2026, and anything we could not confirm is marked as such.

Editverse is an independent editing and writing service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for RDIA, KAUST, KACST or any Saudi university, and nothing here replaces the call text you are applying under.

Saudi Arabia Research Grants in 2026: Who Funds What

RDIA was set up in June 2021 to coordinate and fund research, development and innovation across the Kingdom, following the creation of the Supreme Committee for Research, Development and Innovation in March 2021, according to RDIA’s own Researchers and Innovators Guidebook. Its current RDIA funding page lists two funding programmes, the Saudi Innovation Grants Program and “researchers grants”, and both route applicants to the Saudi Minds portal, which requires JavaScript and could not be read for this edition. For call terms, you therefore need the guideline documents attached to each round.

The October 2024 guidebook describes the researcher-led portfolio as three initiatives, six named grants across the basic science and applied research initiatives plus a lab reactivation initiative. Scheme names and amounts can be re-cut between rounds, so treat the names below as the last published structure rather than a permanent catalogue.

How RDIA Runs Saudi Arabia Research Grants

RDIA organises its funding around four national priorities, namely Health and Wellness, Sustainable Environment and Essential Needs, Energy and Industrial leadership, and Economies of the Future. The guidebook attaches missions to each, such as cutting the prevalence of non-communicable diseases by 50 percent by 2035 and decreasing non-renewable water withdrawal by 90 percent by 2035. A proposal that cannot be mapped to one of these four areas has little chance, because the Young Scholars and Basic Science guidelines both list alignment with the priorities and Vision 2030 as an eligibility condition for the project itself.

The rules that bind every RDIA grant sit in the Research Grants Regulation, adopted by RDIA’s board in September 2023. It names the eligible beneficiaries, which include faculty members, researchers, specialists and physicians in universities, hospitals and national research centres in the Kingdom, as well as graduate students, entrepreneurs, and government, private and non-profit entities. A principal researcher must hold a PhD or equivalent or be an officially recognised researcher at the submitting entity, except in programmes aimed at students, entrepreneurs and individuals.

Submission is through the RDIA grant platform only. In the rounds we reviewed, each institution’s Science and Technology Unit receives proposals first, checks them for compliance, research integrity and ethics, and runs a similarity check before anything reaches RDIA. Evaluation then follows a two-phase process in which a proposal that clears the compliance screen is scored on technical merit by at least two independent reviewers or a panel, and the summary statement goes to an oversight committee for the funding decision.

What the regulation says proposals must not do

The regulation’s submission article reads like a list of ways to be disqualified. A proposal may not repeat a topic already funded by RDIA or another body, may not be resubmitted after rejection without technical or financial changes responding to the feedback, and may not come from a team with outstanding technical or financial obligations on earlier RDIA projects. It may not be built wholly or partly from other research or publications, including data or established results, unless the entity has agreed to continue those phases, and it must disclose every other supporter and the amount they provide. It also needs an intellectual property plan and a mechanism for sharing any returns.

Workload limits apply too. A researcher may lead no more than three RDIA projects, may take part in no more than five, and may not draw combined remuneration above that of three projects in a month. Our Saudi grant proposal structure guide covers how to lay out a narrative against criteria like these.

RDIA Young Scholars Grant for Early-Career Researchers

What it funds. The Young Scholars Grant sits in the Saudi Basic Science Initiative and funds project-based basic research at the discovery stage, Technology Readiness Levels 1 to 3. In the 2023 round, the Young Scholars Grant guideline offered up to SAR 1,500,000 for projects that could be completed within five years, and it expected publications, patents and conference participation as outputs. The submission window for that round closed on 30 September 2023, so this is a record of how the scheme worked, not an open call.

Who can apply. The principal investigator had to be within five years of the doctorate, or away from research for documented reasons, or without a journal paper in the previous three years. The PI had to work at a university, research centre, ministry, corporation or company in the Kingdom, and could lead only one project. Past involvement in a national or global research project, or with industry, counted in an applicant’s favour.

How it is judged. The guideline lists eleven criteria, including relevance to the targeted area and Vision 2030, applicability of results, potential impact, technical merit, partnership building, quality of the research team, execution and cost effectiveness, novelty, clarity of milestones, benefit to the Kingdom, and an accurate assessment of the existing TRL with a realistic target. Funding is performance-based, and the guideline requires a similarity report of 10 percent or less for the submitted proposal.

Mistakes proposals make. The guideline’s own wording points to the likeliest failures. A proposal that claims a TRL above discovery stage mismatches the scheme. Text lifted from the applicant’s earlier papers can breach the similarity ceiling even when the work is the applicant’s own. An ethics approval listed as “to be obtained” conflicts with the requirement that all necessary approvals are in place before the project starts. And an output plan that names no target journals leaves reviewers unable to judge execution, which matters because closure depends on a points total, as explained in the section on outputs below.

RDIA Basic Science Grant for Established Principal Investigators

What it funds. The Basic Science Grant uses the same discovery-stage focus as the Young Scholars track but targets researchers with a strong track record and distinguished faculty. The 2023 Basic Science Grant guideline offered up to SAR 1,600,000 for projects implemented within four years, again with a submission deadline of 30 September 2023.

Who can apply. The PI needed a PhD or equivalent, had to be based at a university, research centre, ministry, corporation or company in the Kingdom, and could lead one project at a time. The eligible-project conditions matched the Young Scholars scheme, namely STEM-based work in the national priority topics that contributes to the Kingdom’s R&D ecosystem.

How it is judged and what it demands. The review process is the same two-phase structure, with the same criteria. The difference that matters for planning is the output threshold, because the guideline sets the minimum at 120 points for this grant against 80 for the Young Scholars Grant. A project with a larger budget and a more senior PI is therefore expected to deliver roughly one and a half times the output points.

Mistakes proposals make. The compliance screen at the institution is the first hurdle, since the Science and Technology Unit verifies integrity, ethics and similarity before RDIA sees the file. Another trap is a budget that ignores the item caps in the regulation, which limit human resources to 40 percent, equipment and materials to 75 percent, and both trips and training and other items to 15 percent each. Our Saudi grant budgeting guide shows how to write the justification lines.

Other RDIA Grants: Applied Research, Consortium, Lab Reactivation and Innovation

Beyond the two grants above, the Researchers and Innovators Guidebook names the Research Consortium Grant in the Saudi Basic Science Initiative. The Saudi Applied Research and Technology Initiative covers the Baseload Applied Grant, the Technology Development Grant and the Technology Breakthrough Grant, and exists to move work from discovery to development with the possibility of market testing and commercialisation. The Reactivation and Rebuilding of Existing Labs Initiative funds the upgrading of existing laboratories to raise the number and quality of publications, patents and commercialisation-ready intellectual property.

We have not reproduced eligibility rules, amounts or deadlines for these grants. The guideline documents we could read were for the two basic science grants, and the guidebook does not state terms for the rest. The Saudi Innovation Grants Program appears on the RDIA funding page, but its terms sit behind the Saudi Minds portal and were not readable for this edition. For all of them, check the current call.

Avoid applying to an applied grant with a basic-science proposal. The applied initiative expects a case for development, partners and a route to market, and the basic science guidelines already warn applicants to distinguish between TRL stages. If your result is still a concept without a working demonstration, the applied route is the wrong door even if the funding ceiling looks attractive.

RDIA Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers

What it funds. The Research Fellowship page describes a postdoctoral fellowship, run with Saudi NIH and the US National Institutes of Health, that places Saudi researchers in an NIH laboratory in the United States. Fellows work on topics tied to two 2035 goals, cutting the incidence of infectious disease in Saudi Arabia by half and lowering the prevalence of non-communicable disease by half. Focus areas include infectious diseases, allergy and asthma, immunology, autoimmunity, genetic immunologic diseases and antimicrobial resistance. Funding is up to SAR 750,000 per candidate covering a stipend, health insurance and relocation, for up to two years.

Who can apply. Applicants must be Saudi citizens affiliated with a Saudi university or research institution when they apply, hold a PhD or equivalent from an accredited institution completed within the last five years, propose a topic within the focus areas, and attach an employer letter of support. Applications go through a Microsoft Forms link on the page.

How it is judged. The page does not publish a selection process or a deadline, and it lists a start date of Fall 2025 while the site footer reads 2026, so confirm that a cycle is open before you plan around it.

Mistakes proposals make. The page makes three conditions explicit, and each is easy to miss. A PhD completed more than five years ago fails the eligibility test. A topic outside the listed focus areas fails the alignment test. A missing employer letter fails the document test. Because the host is a US laboratory, state what the host contributes and what returns to the Kingdom.

KAUST Funding: What Is Open to Saudi Arabia Research Grants Applicants

What it funds. KAUST’s Office of Sponsored Research lists four funding programmes, the Center Competitive Funding Program, the Science and Engineering Engagement and Development (SEED) Funds, the Competitive Research Grants programme and Support for Conferences and Workshops, and describes them as internal competitive funding. The Competitive Research Grants page says the programme backs curiosity-driven research of the highest quality, with exploratory proposals running up to 24 months and full proposals up to 36 months. The page does not state amounts or a current deadline.

Who can apply. The official pages do not say that external institutions can lead these proposals. They do say that external academic and industrial collaborators receive special attention in review. Read that as an invitation to collaborate with a KAUST principal investigator, not as an open call for outside applicants.

The routes open to outside researchers. Two fellowships are aimed at people who are not yet KAUST faculty. The Ibn Rushd Postdoctoral Fellowship Award page describes support for Saudi scholars in the final year of a PhD or within three years of finishing, for postdoctoral research at globally recognised host institutions for up to three years, with an annual stipend whose amount is not stated. The Global Postdoctoral Fellowship site targets early-career researchers whose ideas address water, food, energy, health, AI or marine science with a Red Sea focus, and requires a KAUST host principal investigator. It runs in two stages, a concept note and an invited full proposal, and the site lists Stage 1 as 1 September to 1 October and Stage 2 as 15 November to 15 January, without a year, on a form labelled call2027.

How it is judged and what goes wrong. KAUST says its competitive funds use global peer review. The mistake we would expect is the one the pages make obvious, which is applying to an internal programme as an outsider, or approaching a Global Postdoctoral Fellowship without first securing a host who shares the research interest. Contact the host before drafting, because the application cannot proceed without one.

KACST and Saudi Arabia Research Grants: What to Verify Before You Plan

KACST appears in older guides as a source of research grants. This edition does not list any KACST scheme, amount or deadline, because KACST’s own pages could not be read when we prepared it, and a funder’s structure can change when a newer body takes over part of its role. The RDIA guidebook we relied on does not describe a KACST grants route, and RDIA’s regulation states that RDIA research grants are submitted through the RDIA grant platform.

The practical rule is simple. Before writing a KACST-targeted proposal, open KACST’s website, confirm that a call for your discipline is open, and download the call text and eligibility rules. If a third-party page gives you KACST amounts or deadlines, treat them as unverified until the funder’s own call confirms them. A proposal written for a scheme that no longer exists costs weeks you will not get back.

Saudi NIH and Health Research Funding

The Saudi National Institute of Health was approved by the Council of Ministers, according to a Ministry of Health announcement dated 16 August 2023, to supervise and support translational research and clinical trials in the Kingdom. The RDIA guidebook adds that Saudi NIH provides grants for high-quality research, with an emphasis on clinical trials and translational work, and runs targeted training programmes. Neither source gives amounts, eligibility or deadlines, so those details have to come from a current Saudi NIH call.

For health researchers the practical point is registration. We checked the World Health Organization’s list of primary clinical trial registries on 10 October 2026, and none of its 18 entries is a Saudi registry. If your grant funds a trial you intend to publish internationally, check your target journal’s registration policy before enrolment, not after submission.

Which Saudi Arabia Research Grants Fit Your Career Stage

Most applicants lose time by choosing a scheme by funding ceiling. A better method is to apply four gates in order, and stop at the first gate you fail. The first gate is eligibility, meaning degree date, citizenship, host institution and the number of projects you already lead. The second is stage, meaning whether your result is a discovery-stage idea or something ready for development. The third is outputs, meaning whether the output points the scheme demands can be reached in the project period with journals you can realistically publish in. The fourth is timing, meaning whether a call is open now and when the final report falls.

Here is a worked example of the output gate. Suppose you plan a four-year Basic Science Grant, which needs 120 points. Under the guideline’s points table, one paper in a top-100 journal earns 60, a paper in another first-quartile journal earns 40 and a second-quartile paper earns 20. Landing one of each reaches exactly 120, and three first-quartile papers also do. Two first-quartile papers (80) plus a patent under review (20) plus an organised workshop (5) plus two postgraduates (10) plus two postdocs (10) reach 125. If your field has few first-quartile journals open to your study design, that arithmetic shows the grant is the wrong fit before you spend a month on the narrative.

Aligning Grant Outputs With Journal Publication and Acknowledgment

Funders in Saudi Arabia do not treat publication as an afterthought. The 2023 guidelines for both basic science grants carry a weighted-points table with a minimum score, and the Young Scholars guideline requires a copy of the published outputs before the project is closed. The decisions you make about journals at proposal stage therefore become compliance decisions later. For metrics background, see our guide on research impact metrics in Saudi Arabia.

Choose target journals before you write the proposal

The points table rewards papers by journal rank in the Clarivate Journal Citation Reports, and the top-100 row notes that the journal category and rank are considered in the year of publication. A journal that is first quartile this year may not be in the year your paper appears. Build a shortlist with two or three realistic first-quartile journals and one fallback for each planned paper, and put the shortlist in the proposal’s output plan. Our guide to open access types and predatory publishing traps helps screen the fallbacks, because a paper in a doubtful journal earns no points and can cost the team credibility.

Work backwards from the final report

The Young Scholars guideline requires a final report within 30 days of project completion, and it sets the closure documents as an accepted final technical report, an approved financial report and a copy of the published outputs, all within one month of the unit’s notice that the final technical report was accepted. A manuscript still in review at that point does not count as a published output. Plan submission dates a full review cycle ahead of the final report, and leave room for one round of revisions.

Reports also drive money. Allowances for the next budget year are released after approval of the annual technical and financial reports, and late final reports can lead the institution to withhold team allowances. Our dissemination plan guide shows how to turn a publication plan into dated milestones.

Acknowledge the funder correctly

The communication policy in the Young Scholars guideline makes acknowledgment mandatory for receiving funds. The sample wording names RDIA, the initiative and grant scheme, and the grant number, and it applies to papers, presentations and press releases. The guideline also requires prior permission before RDIA’s name is used in the title of any unit or centre it supports, and it asks for advance notice of press releases at least two working days before release. Use the exact wording in your own award contract if it differs, and keep one acknowledgment sentence on file for every co-author to paste.

Expect a pre-publication check at your institution

The RDIA guidebook states that before any funded results are published, RDIA requires prior approval from the research and development unit inside the institution, which confirms compliance with RDIA’s guidelines and checks that the citation levels in the research meet the required standards. Ask your Science and Technology Unit how long that approval takes and what it wants to see, and send them the manuscript earlier than you would send a normal internal review.

The same document says that research on living organisms must also follow the Law of Ethics of Research on Living Things, issued by Royal Decree M/59 in August 2010. Cite the ethics approval number in the methods section and keep it consistent across the manuscript, cover letter and registry entry. Our guide to writing the ethics section and data management plan guide cover both.

Know what outside language help is allowed

The regulation’s article on activities outside the Kingdom says that assigning a party outside the Kingdom to prepare outputs, write scientific papers or draft books is not allowed, except for linguistic revision, unless a non-disclosure agreement is signed. In plain terms, outside copyediting and language polishing of a manuscript your team wrote is the category the regulation leaves open, while ghost-writing the science is not. For manuscripts, Editverse offers language-level editing and does not write the science. Before engaging any external editor, ask your Science and Technology Unit to confirm in writing what it accepts, and share unpublished data only under an agreement.

Pre-Submission Checklist for Saudi Arabia Research Grants

• Confirm the call is open and that you are reading the current guideline, not the 2023 round documents summarised here.
• Check the degree date, host institution and project count against the eligibility lines, including the one-project limit for PIs in the basic science grants.
• Map the project to one of the four national priorities and name the mission it serves.
• State the TRL honestly, and match the scheme to it.
• Run a similarity check and keep the proposal at or under 10 percent, including overlap with your own papers.
• Attach ethics approvals, not promises of ethics approvals, and name the Law of Ethics of Research on Living Things where it applies.
• Disclose every other funder and amount, and confirm you have no unresolved obligations on earlier RDIA projects.
• Write the output plan as a points calculation with named target journals and a fallback for each.
• Set manuscript submission dates ahead of the final report, leaving time for the institution’s pre-publication approval.
• Keep the budget inside the item caps and justify every line, with publication and IP fees listed where the guideline allows them.
• Draft the funder acknowledgment sentence now and store it with the grant number once awarded.

Two more of our guides support these steps. The impact statement guide helps with the societal benefit criterion, and the collaboration plan guide helps with partnership building. If you are also targeting US funding, our NIH grant proposal guide covers a different but related review culture.

Saudi Arabia Research Grants FAQ

Are RDIA grants open every year?

RDIA’s FAQ says it offers researchers the chance to apply for grants aligned with the national priorities annually, and tells applicants to follow its official accounts for dates and submission methods. Calls are announced per round, so there is no standing deadline to plan around.

Can a researcher based outside Saudi Arabia apply?

The regulation’s beneficiary categories are individuals and entities in the Kingdom. Researchers from abroad can join a team as external researchers under limits, namely no more than two per project or 25 percent of the team, no more than 20 percent of the workload, and tasks that transfer new technology to the Kingdom. The external researcher must be at an internationally ranked institution and have at least three papers in very high-impact journals, a patent or a major international award.

Does RDIA’s Open Access programme set publication licence rules?

No. RDIA’s Open Access programme implements a national policy on open access to government-funded research infrastructure, and lets users inside and outside the Kingdom request access to facilities. It does not set article licensing rules. Check your award contract and target journal for publication terms.

Is KACST still a source of research grants?

We could not confirm this from KACST’s own pages when this edition was prepared. Check its website for an open call before you plan.

Professional Services for Grant Proposals and Funded Manuscripts

Editverse supports the two ends of a funded project, the proposal that wins the grant and the manuscripts that satisfy it. We work from the call text you provide, confirm scope before work begins, and keep to language and structure, not to producing the science. The packages below are listed with typical starting prices, and a quote path is open for anything outside them.

For manuscript-side help with English-language medical writing, see our medical English editing guide. If your project needs something these packages do not cover, request a quote and describe the call and the deadline.

Conclusion

RDIA is the scheme to understand first, because its regulation, its priorities and its output rules shape almost every researcher-led grant in the Kingdom. KAUST offers fellowships for specific profiles and internal funding for its own faculty. KACST needs a direct check with the funder before you plan. Choose by eligibility, stage, outputs and timing, in that order, and write the output plan as a points calculation with named journals. Then keep the funder acknowledgment, ethics numbers and registry entries consistent across every document the journal will see.

Funders restructure, so confirm every scheme name and number against the current call before you submit.

Sources

All pages were read on 10 October 2026. Scheme rules for the Young Scholars and Basic Science grants are from the 2023 round documents and may differ in the current call.

1. RDIA, Funding programmes page
2. RDIA, Research Fellowship
3. RDIA, Open Access programme
4. RDIA, National Priorities
5. RDIA, Frequently Asked Questions
6. RDIA, Research Grants Regulation (version 1.0, 2023)
7. RDIA, Researchers and Innovators Guidebook (October 2024)
8. RDIA, Saudi Basic Science Initiative Young Scholars Grant Guidelines (2023 round, RDIA document hosted by KFUPM)
9. RDIA, Saudi Basic Science Initiative Basic Science Grant Guidelines (2023 round, RDIA document hosted by KFUPM)
10. KAUST Office of Sponsored Research, Competitive Research Funds
11. KAUST, Competitive Research Grants programme
12. KAUST, Ibn Rushd Postdoctoral Fellowship Award
13. KAUST, Global Postdoctoral Fellowship
14. Saudi Ministry of Health, Saudi National Institute of Health announcement (16 August 2023)
15. World Health Organization, ICTRP Primary Registries