Nov 24, 2025

Students Earn Regional Recognition for the GSR Conference

In a significant moment for student-led platforms of innovation, the inaugural Global Students Research (GSR) Conference, organized entirely by KFUPM students and held in February 2025, has been named winner of the 2024–2025 Best of CASE Asia-Pacific Region Award in the Student Engagement category. Presented by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), this honor marks a major achievement for the student organizers, who set out to design an event that matched international benchmarks while showcasing KFUPM’s strength in research and student leadership.

What began as a dream grew into the world’s largest student-led research movement and the first event of its kind in Saudi Arabia, an achievement mirroring KFUPM’s motto “Dream Big and Accomplish.” A cross-departmental team of more than 170 students brought the conference to life, supported by the university’s Deanship of Student Affairs, Deanship of Global Engagement, Research and Innovation Office, and several of the university’s 20+ interdisciplinary research centers.

The result was a wide-ranging ecosystem of research, innovation, competitions, keynotes, and international engagement. The numbers alone illustrate its scale: over 5,200 tickets sold, attendees from 54 countries, more than 1,500 research paper submissions, 40+ keynote sessions, 180 poster sessions, and 12 oral presentations. Two of the program’s many highlights were the GSR Expo and the Hackathon, the latter bringing together 800+ participants to address real-world challenges. Winning teams received 120,000 SAR in prizes, while the overall event offered an additional 36,000 SAR in research awards and 4,500+ SAR in marketing prizes. Enhancing the experience further, the organizing team launched a dedicated conference app, downloaded by most registrants and ranked 113 among educational apps in Saudi Arabia during the event period.

From the outset, the GSR team’s mission was to deliver a student-driven event that met global standards and highlighted KFUPM as a place where students take initiative, design large-scale platforms, and build meaningful academic communities. Their efforts are part of a rise in student-led scholarly work at KFUPM. For example, students have also launched The Journal for Undergraduate Research International (JURI), a global journal that released its first edition in September 2025.

The official CASE award ceremony will take place during the CASE Asia-Pacific Advancement Conference in Brisbane, Australia, from 6–8 May 2026, where KFUPM students will be recognized among peer institutions across the region.

With events of the GSR Conference’s magnitude, KFUPM students have demonstrated what is possible when ambition, organization, and academic curiosity are nurtured. Their work has both advanced the university’s research culture and set a precedent for taking on ambitious, global initiatives.