The University of Texas at Austin is the latest American institution to sign an agreement to help King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the ambitious $10-billion research institution that Saudi Arabia plans to open in 2009, design an academic curriculum and hire faculty members.

The two universities announced today a research-and-educational partnership in computational earth science and engineering.

The Texas agreement followed the Saudi institution’s similar deals, made public on Tuesday, with Stanford University and with the University of California at Berkeley. Under the arrangements, each American university will receive $10-million to conduct joint research projects with Kaust, as the Saudi institution is known, as well as another $10-million to pursue projects of its own choosing.

The partnerships are part of Kaust’s bold plan to immediately establish itself as one of the world’s leading research institutions. The university, which was founded with an endowment from the Saudi king, is expected to open in September 2009.

But some critics have questioned whether top-flight academics will be attracted to the religiously and culturally conservative country, which has a meager record of investment in scientific research. Kaust officials say members of the teaching staff there will have the academic and cultural freedoms of professors at other international research universities. —Karin Fischer