Since its establishment, HEF represents an important pillar in developing the higher education sector as one of the most important sectors in which our rational government takes great interest. HEF procured a specialized administrative staff to follow up the investment of the universities amounts of money and to fund their important projects. So, since establishment HEF has been keen to follow up all the new trends of education technologies and development of its output as the fund realizes its pivotal role in supporting the universities to achieve increasing growth in the educational process. HEF continued its activity and tasks to enable the universities increase their ability to play their role that meets the volume of development requirements. The total number of projects funded by HEF since establishment up to the end of 2019 (519) projects with a value of SAR (2,139,925,973). Since HEF establishment, such funded projects were oriented towards many essential projects according to the following categories:
First Category
Category of “Support the scientific and academic programs of the universities” ranked first whereas its cost reached SAR (918,329,087) approximately up to the end of 2019. HEF participated by projects in which all universities participate in order to relieve the financial burdens resulting from being implemented individually for each university. Such projects include providing the research information in different fields that universities need especially that the electronic information became an urgent need to support the researchers’ requirements. While such electronic data and information has high cost if subscribed in individually, HEF worked to provide such sources collectively to achieve the maximum benefit from them with the least possible costs.
Second Category
The projects funded by HEF under the category “Establishment of new colleges and expanding in existing colleges” ranked second in the total funded projects whereas the cost reached SAR (711,586,876) up to the end of 2019 in order to secure the universities requirements and their need to expansion in their existing buildings to cope with the tangible increase in the number of the admitted students.
Third Category
“Funding and Purchasing equipment and securing laboratories supplies” ranked third with a total cost that reached SAR (276.421.017) up to the end of 2019. Such funding participated in raising the efficiency of the educational infrastructure.
Fourth Category
“Funding of Programs, centers, researches and scholarships in universities” ranked fourth at the end of 2019 with a total amount of SAR (132.318.559). the project of national applied researches is a prominent example of such projects. This project aims at directing the scientific research towards studying national phenomena and problems in addition to urging the faculty members, researchers and other stakeholders to present applied ideas, enriching the educational and research processes and raising the research level of the students and professors.
Fifth Category
“Secure Scholarships and Students Engagement” is a project category that HEF engages universities to implement. The examples include the parallel medical education program which aims at raising the scientific competence of the students and expanding in increasing the number of admitted students in this field whereas this category was funded up to the end of 2019 with SAR (13,555,056).
Sixth Category
HEF supports a number of projects under the category “Securing Urgent Needs for University Hospitals”. HEF adopted a flexible methodology and prompt response to support the urgent needs for university hospitals believing in their social and human role. The total cost of funded projects under this category reached an amount of (87,715,218) at the end of 2019.