Almaarefa University

Al Maarefa University (UM) is a private establishment of higher education, designed to fulfill a recognized public function, by meeting clearly identified needs in important domains for national development. Besides that, UM adopts an innovative approach to teaching and learning, by making intensive use of cutting-edge educational technologies. It attracts students from a broadly targeted clientele, namely high school graduates (both male and female) from the Riyadh region, from other regions of Saudi Arabia and from the GCC states. It is also envisioned to attract expatriates’ sons and daughters who wish to pursue college studies. 

Since its establishment (1999), UM has admitted 6000 students and graduated 1500 students as of 2019/2020 academic year.

UM is devoted to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through restructuring the institution, effectively managing, and mobilizing institutional resources to foster the spirit of innovative teaching and learning, research initiatives, national and international partnership. UM shall strengthen internal and external sources of resource mobilization through private, national, international agencies and explore any other means of financial support to finance academic and research activities at the national and international levels. UM comprises three colleges (College of Applied Sciences, College of Medicine and College of Pharmacy). It launches community outreach campaigns to reach all the stakeholders served by the UM. There shall be a sustainability department reasonable for identifying the SDGs assigned to each college, program, course, and other sectors related to the UM. The aim is to enhance national and international partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that encourage and share knowledge and experiences, expertise, technology and financial resources, eventually implementing the SDGs based on innovation capacity-building strategy.

As an extension of the university's recent academic and community achievements, the University has achieved a new achievement by achieving 201-300 place in the World, 10th Arab Centre and 4th locally, according to the THE University Impact Ranking of universities and measuring their impact on society based on their excellence in achieving the 17th United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.